How To Share Internet Connection With Another Computer Using Windows 7/Vista

Having two computers at your home, you may have only one internet connection which you want to share between two computers.

Now consider there are two computers. Computer A has Windows Vista while computer B has Windows XP. Computer A is connected to internet via cable (so this will be connected through LAN card). Now to connect to Computer B, you will need another LAN card (to connect to more than one computer, you will need a wired hub).

First, Let us connect two computers in LAN

Follow these steps to connect two computers in LAN.

Step 1: In Windows 7/Vista, you should enable Sharing and Discovery before doing that. You can do this by going to Control Panel > Network and Sharing Centre. Under the section Sharing and Discovery, enable Network Discovery, file sharing, public folder sharing and others if you want to. (The screen short below gives you idea). Here first network shows connection to internet and second one the local connection with another computer.



 
Step 2: If your LAN card that is connecting to another computer is installed, it will be shown at Control Panel > Network Connections.

Step 3: Right click the Local Area Connection and click Properties.

Step 4: Under the tab ‘Networking’, click the properties internet protocol version 4(TCP/IPv4).

Step 5: Click the radio button to ‘use the following IP’ and give an IP address (Forexample: IP address: 192.168.0.1 and Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0). Do not give any other information, Click OK and close.
 
Step 6: In Computer B, make sure you enable the LAN card which is used to connect to computer A. Here you need not give any IP information as Computer A will assign an IP address dynamically. If it is not working, make sure there are no IP assigned and change the properties to ‘obtain an IP address automatically’.
 
Step 7: Test the connection by pinging (You can do this by typing ping 192.168.0.1 or whichever is Computer ‘A’s IP in the command prompt).

Now let us share the internet connection of Computer A with Computer B

Right click the LAN card which is connected to the internet under Control Panel > Network Connections and click the Sharing tab and click both options to connect internet (Remember: Unless there is another enabled LAN setting you will not be able to see the shared tab under properties). Click OK and close. This option is given by Windows known as ICS (Internet Connection Sharing).

That is it, now you can use internet in both computers A and B.