Bridging Internet Win 7 to Win XP crossover ethernet

[Easy E]

I'll try and give as much info as possible to reduce the amount of unnecessary questions and wasted time. I am extremely frustrated and at the point of pulling out my hair.

I used to have my windows XP Home Service Pack 3 desktop connected to my Toshiba Satellite laptop running Windows 7 via a crossover ethernet cable. This is how I accessed the internet on my desktop. Setting this up initially was no problem.

Recently, I formatted and reinstalled Windows XP on the desktop (hadn't been done in a few years, clogged, slow, needed to be done). Since then, I've tried to do the same connection I had before with a crossover ethernet cable from my laptop to my desktop. No luck.

No settings on my laptop have changed since the format & reinstall of windows XP on my desktop. I have checked all the settings, including file sharing, windows firewall (on, off, exceptions allowed), file folder sharing, network discovery, etc. All are set to on besides windows firewall (exceptions allowed). I tried deleting and recreating the network bridge between the LAN and Wireless network multiple times to no avail.
I've tried multiple different IP addresses and default gateways, nothing works.
Before you jump to any conclusions, I used this as my guide: http://www.wikihow.com/Bridge-an-Internet-Connection

My laptop has internet and works perfectly fine.

My desktop, in network connections, has one LAN or High-Speed Internet connection labeled 1394 Connection. File and printer sharing is turned on, and I manually put in the ICP/TCP settings here but no luck either. Something interesting is no matter what I do, under 1394 connection status support tab, the address type, IP address, subnet mask and default gateway are all blank. Clicking "repair" immediately yields a message "Failed to query TCP/IP settings of the connection. Cannot proceed."

At this point I am guessing some driver needs to be updated or something like that? It is important to note that I have not installed ANYTHING on my desktop since reinstalling windows. It is not running any anti virus software. I have not been connected to the internet for a single second since reinstalling windows XP.

Any and all help will be greatly appreciated, thank you!

 

[SNGX1275]

1394 is Firewire, that isn't going to get you anywhere when you are trying to do it over a crossover cable. Windows Internet Connection Sharing is how you should proceed:

From Windows help:
To enable ICS, on your host computer:

1. Open Network Connections.
2. Right-click the connection that you want to share, and then click Properties. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
3. Click the Sharing tab, and then select the Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection check box.
   Notes
   • The Sharing tab won't be available if you have only one network connection.
   • You can choose whether to select the Allow other network users to control or disable the shared Internet connection check box.
   • Optionally, to allow other network users to use services running on your network, click Settings, and then select the services you want to allow.

When you enable ICS, your local area network (LAN) connection gets a new static IP address and configuration, so you'll need to reestablish any TCP/IP connections between your host computer and the other network computers.

To test your network and Internet connection, see if you can share files between computers and make sure each computer can reach a website.

Configure TCP/IP
To use ICS, make sure the local area network (LAN) connection on each network computer is configured to get an IP address automatically. To do this:

1. Open Network Connections.
2. Right-click the LAN connection, and then click Properties. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.
3. Click Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) or Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6), and then click Properties.
4. Click Obtain an IP address automatically or Obtain an IPv6 address automatically, and then click OK.

The Internet options on your network computers should also be configured for ICS. For more information, see Change Internet settings for ICS (Internet Connection Sharing).

Don't use ICS on a network with domain controllers, DNS servers, gateways, or DHCP servers. And don't use ICS on systems configured for static IP addresses.

ICS and VPN connections
If you create a virtual private network (VPN) connection on your host computer to a corporate network and then enable ICS on that connection, all Internet traffic is routed to the corporate network and all of the computers on your home network can access the corporate network. If you don't enable ICS on the VPN connection, other computers won't have access to the Internet or corporate network while the VPN connection is active on the host computer.

ICS and ad hoc networks
If you share your Internet connection on an ad hoc network, ICS will be disabled if:

• You disconnect from the ad hoc network.
• You create a new ad hoc network without disconnecting from the ad hoc network for which you enabled ICS.
• You log off and then log back on (without disconnecting from the ad hoc network).