How to connect two computers – Quick and Easy ?

Here are the steps to connect two computers in Windows XP. This will let you share files and folders, printers, play network games etc.

Things You Will Need
1. A Crossover cabe – This is a Cat5 Ethernet Cable that the wires have been switched around to allow two computers to talk to each other.
2. Ethernet adapter or in simple terms the port on the back of your pc where you are going to insert this cable.

Steps:
1. Connect the two computers with the crossover cable.
2. Set the IP address on both computers. Goto Start > Control Panel > Network Connections ( Choose switch to classic view if you cannot see network connections ).
3. Look for your Local Area Connection ethernet adapter, right click and choose properties.
4. Select Internet Protocol TCP/IP and choose properties.
5. Set the IP as 192.168.1.1 and the subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 on the first computer and 192.168.1.2 on the second with same subnet mask.
6. click OK and OK/Close again.

Tips:
1.To share your files, right click on any folder or drive and choose sharing to make them shared.
2.This can also be done with printers to be able to print from one computer while the printer is connected to the other.

For Windows 7- The steps are similar, you can find your Local Area Connection in Network and sharing centre.

How to make a backup of your files ?

This is one of the basic, simple thing you can do to save your work in windows environment.

Simply go to Start>All Programs> Accessories> System Tools> Backup

It will start the Backup Wizard and click “Next”

Select Backup Files and Settings
Then Select What you want to backup

Then Select where you want your backup to be saved. You can select a Network place as well.

Then backup name and click “Next”

Click Advanced if you want to schedule the backup or select the backup type.

First Select the Type of backup you want to do

Normal – Backup selected files and Mark each file as backed up.

Copy – Backup selected files, but does not mark as backed up.

Then Schedule it and test it whether it backs up properly or not by restoring it to another area.

How to hide drives for your security & privacy ?

Hide Drives for security & Privacy This is a great trick you can play on your friends.
To disable the display of local or networked drives when you click My Computer.

1.Go to start->run.Type regedit.Now go to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Now in the right pane create a new DWORD item and name it NoDrives (it is case sensitive).

Now modify it’s value and set it to 3FFFFFF (Hexadecimal) .

Now restart your computer. So, now when you click on My Computer, no drives will be shown(all gone…).

To enable display of drives in My Computer, simply delete this DWORD item that you created.

Again restart your computer.You can now see all the drives again.