Windows – Can’t ping computers via a bridged connection

bridgenetworkingwindows 7windows 8.1wireless-networking

I've got the following setup:

  • PC running Windows 8.1 with a Wifi card connected to the local network and an ethernet cable running to a laptop. Wifi and Ethernet connections are bridged.
  • Laptop running Windows 7 with the ethernet port connected to the above PC (Wifi card disabled). The wired network connection is recognised as a "Home" connection in Windows 7.

I can't ping the laptop from the PC and vice versa, neither can I access any of the shared network folders on either machine. The bridge network connection otherwise seems to be working fine, as the laptop is able to connect to the internet (which can only be via the wired ethernet connection to the PC, as the built in wifi card is disabled).

Any thoughts on why the two machines can't access each other's network folders?

Best Answer

There could be a number of reasons for your problems, and it's hard to say which. My advice when setting something like this up would be:

Don't bridge. That is principally for paralleled connections to the same LAN.

Use a cheap switch/hub instead of an X-over cable, which is not always reliable.

Buy an Ethernet wireless access point and connect this to a third hub socket. (or get a combined hub/AP) Configure it as a client of the WiFi network.

When wired, turn off the WiFi on the Win8 Computer. It will also get its Internet connenction via the hub/AP.

Share a folder on the serving computer, and if necessary create a user account to access it with, and assign share and filesystem permissions.

To avoid IP changes, either give the serving computer a static IP, or else give it a secured lease on the Internet router's DHCP.

Ensure that port 445 is open to LAN destinations on the serving computer's firewall.

On the client, create a batch file containing net use h: \192.168.1.23\sharename /user:username password

(where the ip is that of the serving computer) Run this batch file to connect to the share. Drive H: should then become the share on the client.

HTH.

Basically there are many ways to do these things, but experience shows that some work reliably, others less so. Often it's the old ways that work reliably ;)

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