Hello,

this is my current situation:

Connected to the internet directly through a hub.
Before I told XP this was my setup I could see in explorer about a thousand computers in my workgroup. All fellow students (our internet is deliverd by college). Thus not only the ones connected through the same hub as I (5-ports).

I do not like sharing my computer with that many people, I received several corrupted/infected files in my shared folder in the few days I didn't had a clue what I was sharing and to whom.

So now I like to plug out the cable-modem once in a while and create this:

so I can share music, movies files with my roomies at high speed through the hub.
How can I do it?

With the XP networking wizzard you can choose for one of the above, but that applies to one LAN-icon in network-connections. At least I can't figure out how to create an extra LAN-connection and then choose the one I with the correct setup for the current situation. And going through the Wizzard each time I unplug or plug in the cable-modem is a little too much.

Greetings to you all

Not sure of the network policies of your college LAN, but see if you and your roomate can start your own workgroup...name it whatever you want...and I am pretty sure you can set a password for your workgroup, and you only have to give it to the people you want to have access. Once you get that set up, you can make your initial settings, and shouldn't have to do them again...

This may or may not work - if you need to be part of the school workgroup sometimes, it may be a pain...this is al only a suggestion based on the info you provided initially.

Why do you want to run networking wizard every time you unplug the cable modem?

Yes. You set up your computers with a unique workgroup name as in the first setup. Changing the workgroup name is not a security feature though. It prevents an idle browser from stumbling on your computer but anyone who knows (and finding workgroups on a LAN is very easy) your workgroup name can add his machine to your workgroup and use any unprotcted shares there.

If you want to have your own private LAN you need to install some sort of a firewall/NAT device between the internet connection and your computers.

Running the wizzard each time, takes a few minutes, and my roomies aren't that into computers. So I have to do it on each comp. I hoped their would be a easy way fo switching between configurations.

The images are from the XP wizzard, so I didn't make or generated them myself. Sorry.

The easiest thing would be to add a 2nd NIC to which the cable modem is connected & keep the hub connected to the other NIC.

Then disable the shares for the cable modem connection, that way only the users on your LAN ( connected to the other card ) can access your shares & it can't hurt to password protect them BTW.

But if I do that, the other computers won't have a connection to the internet would they?

You would have to turn your PC into a gateway & as so it would have to be on most of the time ( whenever they want to use the net ).

You can always get a cheap machine to set up as an Internet gateway if you wish. A pentium 133/166 with a small Linux distro will do wonders.

I, like LNCPapa, would like to know what application e-Willem used for those diagrams...it would make a nice addition to what I use at work currently...

Didn't he answer it allready ?

Right you are Didou...that was an oversight on my part. Thanks for providing some clarity...

Why do you have to change configurations? Do you get your IP addresses automatically from some college server?

Alternatively, install a software firewall on each of your and your roomies' PCs (the free Zonealarm will do), where you limit the PCs that can access your PC, to the IP-addresses of the other roomies.

Thanks for all the advice, but there I haven't seen the solution.

For an extra server we have no space in the house, when the hub is connected I don't want (and currently aren't) to share anything, since there are a lot of others with in. When I choose the xp-wizzard setup from the first image, there are no other computers shown in My Network places and Workgroup. This is a-oké. But when I unplug the internet cable, it would be nice to share a hole partition or so with my roomies.

Typing this, I think I'm going to normally setup my computer for indirect connection, so I'm visible in the network. But just don't share a thing. When I unplug the cable-modem cable from the hub I share the folder/partition I want. And unshare it if I plug in internet again. Just as easy.

Or does this leave me vulnerable.

My ip-adres is automaticly asigned and fixed.