Connecting 2 PCs or Laptops using a LAN cable alone

Additions: Controlling another PC/Laptop using this connection

It's a tutorial I wrote for my future frustration recoveries. It's pretty easy and lots of tutorials are avaible if you aren't clever enough. But most of them forget to mention things or are not universal for all the cases. I have done this so many times. Yet, I had to figure out a way this time myself even when I used one of those tutorials.

Well, first off you need a LAN cable. Both of your PCs must have LAN connectivity and atleast one of them must have modern/advanced (basically supporting MD/x) LAN card because sometimes the cable type becomes a headache. I seriously never cared about what cable I had. But MD/x enabled LAN cards can make do with any situation.

Alright, now for the settings in the PCs. Do this on both.

1. Go to My Computer (don't try to use the old joke here), Right Click > Properties.

2. Click the tab "Computer Name" click "Change".

3. Name it anything but must select the radio button "Workgroup" and name the group "WORKGROUP'.

4. Go to Control Panel. Select Windows Firewall and turn it off.

5. Go to your Network Connections and select the Local Area Connection. If you don't have one try connecting both the PCs using the cable. Right click on it and select Properties.

6. In the "This connection uses the following items" box select only these four and deselct all the others.

a. Client for Microsoft Networks

b. File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks

c. QoS Packet Scheduler

d. Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)

I don't know how important this is but let's just do this for now. Cuz, it helped me have my connection working

7. Select "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)" and click Properties button. Make these changes and nothing else.

For PC 1:

IP Address: 192.168.1.1

Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0

Default gateway: 192.168.1.2

For PC 2:

IP Address: 192.168.1.2

Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0

Default gateway: 192.168.1.1

8. It's just a statement, you might need to restart both the PCs.

9. After that's all done go to My Network Places > Entire Network > Workgroup. I hope you have them both, at least the "Shared Documents" folder from both.

You can do Multiplayer gaming via this connection as I have done. My old rig can't run today's gems so I tried Moto Racer, Futurecop. The protocol I used was Internet TCP/IP. Think it will work for all the cases.