Wireless Home Networking - Index of

186
Part IV: Using a Wireless Network
Figure 10-1:
See
networked
Windows
2000 or
Windows XP
computers
in My
Network
Places.
Networked computers
In general, you see two types of devices on your network:
� Stand-alone network devices: These are computers, storage devices,
gaming devices, and so on that have a network port and are on the network
in their own right.
� Attached devices: These are peripherals, drives, or other devices that
are on the network because they’re attached to something else, such as
a PC.
Just double-click your workgroup to see all your home computers and other
networked devices. Click any to see what you can share within them.
All this mouse clicking can be a pain. Save your wrist and create a shortcut
to your shared resources by right-clicking the item and choosing Create
Shortcut — creating shortcuts works the same in Vista as in XP. Shortcuts are
especially handy for people who have networked devices that they visit often
on the Internet, such as File Transfer Protocol (FTP) sites.
If you find a computer that you expect to be on the network but it’s not, make
sure that its workgroup name is the same as the other machines — this is a
common mistake. (See the earlier section “Setting up a workgroup in
Windows XP.”)
We find using Windows Explorer to be the best way to visualize what’s on your
computer and your network. You can get to Windows Explorer in Windows XP
in two ways. Either right-click the Start button and choose Explore, or choose
Start➪Programs➪Windows Explorer. Figure 10-2 shows Windows Explorer
looking at available network resources.