[jarves]

how can i make my windows xp a router?
do i need a third party software for that?

[ScinteX]

Try Googling for "Internet Connection Sharing"

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&...earch&meta=

However this isn't always the best option since its not technically a "proper" router. For that, you will need to buy a separate piece of hardware.

Typically (in the most simplest 'home' type setup) you need this:

A router (with or without ADSL modem built in for broadband access).
A network connection on each client (if the client dont have any, just buy PCI netowrk cards- cost about 5 GBP each).
RJ45 cables to connect it all.

To expand on this if you have more clients you could buy a hub and give connectivity to more clients.

Next step up is "a proper network" lol

In a small office/company/enterprise you'll typically have one server acting as the gateway (a proxy), a domain controller, maybe DHCP/WINS etc (plus other servers that might do things like purely control authentication, act as BDCs -backup domain controllers- etc). Depends on the number clients, existing hardware/architecture.. its hard to exactly quantify.


.... however whatever the size you can generalise and say that all of the clients connect to the gateway/proxy/ADSL router/whatever you want to call it by setting up the "Lan connection" in the browser, and thus use the network connectivity.

S

[ross_aveling]

When the XP machine is multi-homed you can enable routing/IP forwarding with a little registry hack.

Here is Microsoft's KB article about it.

[ScinteX]

hehe its so easy when you know the answer! lol... good post RA

[ross_aveling]

LOL. There's 'nout wrong with your post Scintex, just covering all the angles.