Help setting up a direct (cabled) network connection between two Windows 2000 Pro PCs

[KA.]

First, this is my first post to this forum, so please forgive me if I missed something obvious.

To be brief, I am connecting two PC's running Windows 2000 Pro Service Pack 4. I am trying to connect them via a crossover cable, between two standard NIC's.
Each computer can connect to the Internet using it's own modem, but I want to be able to have one PC dialup, and the other one share the connection.

That is my real question, but if you want to read the long sad story of why I need to do this, read below.

Thanks,

KA.

For those who are interested, my long, sad, story.

I had two PC's running Windows 2000, and a laptop which runs Windows ME, networked together using a Linksys 5 port switch.
Because of the layout of the room, the only place to put the hub was on top of a bookcase that sits in a window.
Both PC's were connected to surge protectors (that appeared to be functioning normally) for both their power and phone lines.
The laptop, thank goodness, was not hooked up.
A couple of weeks ago, we had a sudden thunderstorm come up, and right when I was about to go shut down my PC, I heard a crack that sounded like lightning had struck inside the room that houses my PC and hub.

My PC was in a weird locked-up state.
I had to power it down hard just to get it to shutdown.
My wife's PC (networked to mine) would not turn on at all.
After a few weeks of work, testing and replacing things, here is what the damage was:
My PC - Power Supply, Modem, Onboard LAN Connector, Graphics Card
My Wife's PC - Power Supply, Motherboard, Modem
And, the Hub was dead, no power, no lights.

After talking to several people, the best guess I can come up with is that lightning struck right outside the window where the Hub was, and induced voltage in the cables and fried things.
So, since I don't have to actually have the laptop networked, and I don't really want to buy another hub (I had just bought the one that got fried a month or so ago, after my previous one died of old age.) I decided to just go with a direct connection using a crossover cable. It seems safer, and it is also cheaper.

[Roadrunner777]

Ok, I'm working on this... in the meantime, can the two computers see each other, network-wise?

[Roadrunner777]

Microsoft ICS will do this, and I think there are third party programs to do it as well. Microsofts instructions, such as they are:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310563/

This is for XP, but I think the concept carries.

I'm going to defer to other people to help you through this, I have not done this personally.

[gimpy530]

Are you sure they were surge protectors and not power strips? (common mistake, they look they same but only one will actually stop electrical surges)

I had a similar thing happen 3 years or so ago....PCs plugged into surge protectors, router wasn't.....lightnign storm, network died.....after alot of messing around to figure out the problem and even having verizon come to my house and try a different DSL modem I figured out the problems......network cards in both computers dead, router dead, network cable dead, and somewhere along trying to fix it setting got messed up on one of the computer.....took me forever to figure out that it wasn't thing keeping me from getting to the internet, it was a combination of things....

The lesson: anything that connects to your computer (router, monitor, printer, etc.) needs also to be plugged into a surge protector....that includes your phone lines!

As far as the ICS goes, here is a site which may be of some use: http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/ics_2000

[Archangel122184]

Originally Posted by KA.

After talking to several people, the best guess I can come up with is that lightning struck right outside the window where the Hub was, and induced voltage in the cables and fried things.

There is a lot of things that can and do happen with near lightning strikes. The EM field from lightning does induce electricity in metal and creates and electro static charge, but its not often enough to cause damage to electronics. What usually damages computers is the extremely strong magenetic charge from a lightning strike. If you want to see something fun... put metal shavings on a peice of glass a put it in a dry place outside durring an electrical storm and wait for a close hit.

Like roadrunner said, ICS should do the job for you. You said you already use one, but I did want to say that to connect 2 computers directly together, you must use a crossover cable. Also, the MS article is nice, but these should give you a little more detail.

Windows 2000 ICS
Windows XP ICS