Dummies, Wireless

Chapter 10: Putting Your Wireless Home Network to Work
Will You Be My Neighbor?
“Hello! I’m here!” When a computer attached to a network is turned on, it
broadcasts its name to every other device on the network and asks every
device to broadcast as well. If that computer is sharing something, such as a
folder or a printer, the other devices can see it. By asking the other devices to
broadcast, it can then see all of them. This process is repeated (on average)
every 15 minutes in most networks with Windows computers attached to
them.
The “Hello, I’m here” process is a great way to add devices to a network.
Unfortunately, it’s not too great at detecting whether a device falls off or is
disconnected from that network. If a machine or shared device seems to be
visible on your network but doesn’t respond when you try to access it, the
problem may not be on your computer. Devices that get disconnected from
your network don’t immediately appear to be disconnected on some of your
other computers. They usually get removed from the list of available networked
computers only if they fail to answer the every-15-minutes “Hello”
calls from the other machines.
The My Network Places icon is your ticket to the network and seeing what
shared resources are available, such as a printer. (The risk versus reward of
sharing these types of items just makes sense. The chances of a bad guy getting
into your printer and printing documents are rather low — there’s not
much reward for doing that.)
You can see what’s shared on your network by checking out your PC’s My
Network Places. Double-click the My Network Places icon (also usually found
on your desktop) to see options such as Entire Network and Computers Near
Me. Microsoft consolidated the devices in the same workgroup or domain to
the Computers Near Me folder. The Entire Network folder still shows all available
devices on your physical network. The root of the My Network Places
folder is reserved for shortcuts to network resources that you tend to use
regularly.
My Network Places (see Figure 10-1) serves a similar (but enhanced) purpose.
My Network Places gives you access to your entire network resources
and also enables you to add shortcuts to your favorite places. To check out
everything on your home network, click the Entire Network icon. This action
shows you your workgroup.
Regardless of the operating system, devices that are set up to share are
always represented by small computer icons. If you double-click one of these
icons, you can see any shared printers, folders, or other devices represented
by appropriate icons. Sometimes you have to drill down (continue to doubleclick
icons) a little to find all the shared items on your network.
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