I have been using a 3G wireless Internet device to connect to the Internet. This connected to one computer has been sufficient for my needs. However, recently I purchased a new Blu-ray player which will connect to a wireless network. I purchased a wireless router with it so I could connect to my computer, which is set up as a DVR, to watch recorded TV shows. I now have a home network without Internet available to the network. I decided to share the 3G Internet connection on the network. I used the Windows help and Google searches to find how to set this up. I did not find anything that gave good detailed description on how to do this. I ended up trying a few things until I found the setup that works. This is how I setup my system:

What you need:

  1. Network Router.

  2. Computer with 3G or dial-up connection with at least 2 Ethernet ports.

  3. Two Ethernet cables.

Note: Sharing the Internet connection makes one of the Ethernet ports unusable for connecting to the regular network.

Setting up:

Note: It is assumed that your router has been setup as your home network DHCP server, and that your dial-up connection is setup.

Hardware:

  1. Connect one of the Ethernet ports on your computer to the “Internet” port on your router.

  2. Connect the other Ethernet port on your computer to one of the other free ports on your router.

Configuration:

  1. Open “Network Connections.”

  2. Open “Properties” on the dial-up connection you want to share.

  3. Select the “Sharing” tab.

  4. Check “Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection”

  5. Select in the “Home networking connection:” the network connection that corresponds to the Ethernet port you connected to the router’s Internet port.

  6. Click “OK”.

    Note: Windows configures the network adapter to use a static IP address of 192.168.137.1

  7. Open your router’s configuration page.

  8. Navigate to the Internet setup section.

  9. Select Static IP for the Internet connection type.

    Note: The Internet IP Address must be in the same Subnet as the Default Gateway. The Default Gateway must be the same as the IP address assigned to the network adapter used to share the Internet connection.

  10. Use 192.168.137.2 for the Internet IP Address.

  11. Use 255.255.255.0 for the Subnet Mask.

  12. Use 192.168.137.1 for the Default Gateway.

  13. Fill in the DNS 1. I used the Google DNS 8.8.8.8. Any valid DNS will work.

  14. Enable DHCP Server.
  15. The start IP address should be something reasonably below the max value allowed, (I believe that to be 255).
  16. The max users should be a reasonable for the number of network devices that will be connecting to your network through the router and automatically obtaining an IP address.

    Note: The default settings for the start IP address and Max users are what I use, and they usually will be fine for most situations.

  17. Save these settings.

Your Internet connection is now shared to all computers that connect to your router.

Dial-up connections are slow. Sharing this connection among several computers is not an ideal setup. I will be getting broadband Internet as soon as I can, but until then this setup will allow any device or computer on my network that needs an Internet connection to connect to the Internet. It isn’t good for gaming, or streaming videos. If I decide to get a 4G internet device I may continue with this setup. 4G supposedly has about a 6Mbs download which is comparable to an ok DSL speed.

10.04.2009

Windows 7

by Kevin

I just installed Windows 7 on my desktop. My first impressions are pretty good. I might actually use this version of Windows.

Yesterday evening I had a problem, I wanted to access my desktop computer to install a program that I will be using for one of my classes. I was on my laptop in the house, so I usually just use the Remote Desktop Connection tool which works great if nobody else is using the computer you are logging on to. My problem was that my wife was using the computer, and wouldn’t let me log on long enough to do anything. The internet can be a wonderful resource of information when you want to do something.

I found a blog post, actually several, that gave step by step instructions on how to enable a feature in Windows XP pro that Microsoft disabled for the release. One of the blogs mentioned something about with the license agreement only allowing one user being the reason for disabling this feature. I always thought it odd in the task manager the users tab; it alludes to allowing for multiple users connected at the same time. This of course is not possible in the current release of XP.

I used this blog’s steps to accomplish the task of enabling the older beta version which allows multiple users to connect at the same time. There are a lot of steps which include restarting the computer in safe mode, disabling the remote desktop connection among others, that I found unnecessary. Here is what I did:

  1. Download a copy of the older beta version of termsrv.dll (Terminal Services DLL).
  2. Disable hide protected operating system files  in folder options -> view. (Allows you to see one of the folders in the next step).
  3. Rename, in this order, the current versions located in C:\windows\system32\dllcache\ and C:\windows\system32\ (I renamed them to termsrv.dll.release).
  4. *Doing this will cause windows to pop up a waring message saying you are using an unknown file version and need to insert the installation disk to put the current versions of the files. Choose the responses that you want to continue with the current unknown version. Booting into safe mode would allow you to do this without the warning.

  5. Copy the downloaded termsrv.dll into the C:\windows\system32\ folder. Again you will get the waring that you are using an unknown version of a file and to insert the installation disk to fix it. Again continue using the version you just copied.
  6. Open the registry editor regedit.
  7. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\Licensing Core.
  8. Add a DWORD key named EnableConcurrentSessions, give it a value of 1.
  9. Close the registry editor.
  10. Open the Group Policy Editor gpedit.msc.
  11. Go to Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Terminal Services and double click Limit number of connections.
  12. Select enable, and select the number of users you want to connect at the same time. (Many comments on the blog I got this from say that they can only get 3 at once, one said he got 5).
  13. Restart the computer, and you’re done.

These are about half the steps that are given in the blog, and it works. Last night after doing this I tested it and was able to log into my wife’s session on the desktop computer, and log into my session on the desktop through the remote desktop connection.

***WARNINGS***
The termsrv.dll file has no verification. It may or may not be a clean file from the earlier beta version of XP.
Editing the system registry without knowing what you are doing can break your system be careful.