Setting up wireless home network help please?

Hi guys, bit of tech help needed if you can please - I can't follow steps I've seen on the net!

Basically, I have a desktop computer which connects to the internet via my wireless router in the lounge. I have bought a laptop (netbook) with no DVD drive and I want to be able to run a DVD on the desktop and access it on the laptop via the router - is that possible? If so can someone give me a layman's walk through to set it up? I've tried going through the 'home network setup' wizard on the desktop and it looked as though the computers would need to be initially hard-connected together? Confused!

Thanks for any help,

Cheers,
Matt

[flymo]

Which operating systems do you have on each of the client computers?

They wont need to be physically wired together, once they are both able to use the wifi network then they are both on the same local area network and just need configuring to allow the proper access.

[SoulKiss]

Originally Posted by cartytemp

Hi guys, bit of tech help needed if you can please - I can't follow steps I've seen on the net!

Basically, I have a desktop computer which connects to the internet via my wireless router in the lounge. I have bought a laptop (netbook) with no DVD drive and I want to be able to run a DVD on the desktop and access it on the laptop via the router - is that possible? If so can someone give me a layman's walk through to set it up? I've tried going through the 'home network setup' wizard on the desktop and it looked as though the computers would need to be initially hard-connected together? Confused!

Thanks for any help,

Cheers,
Matt

You may have trouble streaming the data from a DVD over your wifi - prolonged fast connections are rare - if your next door neighbour (or missus) turns on the microwave... (seriously)

You could (once the Wifi is set up), use something like VLC (VideoLan Client) to play the DVD on the desktop and stream a "re-encoded for smaller bandwidth requirements" version.

Might be an idea to get a USB DVD drive and just plug it into the netbook when needed.

Thanks for quick replies - both computers are on XP. I don't actually want to play DVD's through the laptop as such - one of the first things I wanted to do is simply install an antivirus software on the laptop - but I only have it on disk! (original version). Can I just rip this on to a pen drive to install on the laptop?

I also wanted to be able to view photos held on the HDD of the desktop on te laptop in the lounge - hence wanting to have the network.

Cheers,
Matt

[flymo]

Yes you can do both of those things. As SK mentioned, you'll probably experience performance issues for streaming DVD content but its more than fine for data access.

Follow the home network wizard but assume that they are both connected together physically for the purposes of network connectivity.