Windows 7 Starter Networking

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Earther

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Hi to all

I have to set up 20 computers for printer and internet sharing using Windows 7 Starter. I have done this successfully using XP Home, but not sure about the limitations of 7 Starter.

I know Starter does not include Homegroup and prefer setting up a workgroup with static IP's in any case.

Will this work? :confused:
 
7 Starter cannot create a Homegroup (workgroup), although it can connect to one. See the MS article about Networking in Windows 7 Starter.


Internet Connection Sharing. A computer running Windows 7 Starter can't use Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) to share its Internet connection with other computers on the network. With Windows 7 Starter, you must use a router to share an Internet connection among several computers. For more information, see Setting up a home network.
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File and printer sharing should work out fine. It's best if you create a homegroup with another flavour of Windows 7, and join Starter to the homegroup. You should rather go for Professional or Home Premium in future. Less headaches :o
 
hungrybeaver said:
7 Starter cannot create a Homegroup (workgroup), although it can connect to one. See the MS article about Networking in Windows 7 Starter.



File and printer sharing should work out fine. It's best if you create a homegroup with another flavour of Windows 7, and join Starter to the homegroup. You should rather go for Professional or Home Premium in future. Less headaches :o
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i was just about to say using starter 7 for business is not a good idea...
 
Venomous said:
i was just about to say using starter 7 for business is not a good idea...
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Yeah... Professional is the standard in business environments. Home Premium works OK if there are like 15 computers but the sharing gets a bit messy with permissions etc.

Professional is the winner though :)
 
hungrybeaver said:
Yeah... Professional is the standard in business environments. Home Premium works OK if there are like 15 computers but the sharing gets a bit messy with permissions etc.

Professional is the winner though :)
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& then the OP's big cheese is making him set up 20 PCs....

Ouch!
 
At one stage during the Beta testing of Windows 7 someone at Microsoft claimed that it would only come in 4 flavours; Professional & Ultimate, 32 & 64 bit precisely because of the problems associated with the "entry level" versions of XP & Vista.

I expect the same will happen with Windows 8 :(
 
Win 7 Starter cannot create a Homegroup but can join to one
 
So if i give 2 or more pc's the same workgroup name, give them the same ip range and share the printer, shouldn't it work?
 
Wanted to check the settings myself on a win7 starter notebook, but stock only coming end of week.
 
Earther said:
So if i give 2 or more pc's the same workgroup name, give them the same ip range and share the printer, shouldn't it work?
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The workgroup must be created by a computer running either XP Home, XP Pro, Win7 Home Premium or Win7 Pro. Only then can the Win7 Starter computers be connected to it. I'm not sure if the computer used to create the Homegroup must be constantly on the Homegroup though.

You will have success with printer & file sharing if all devices are on the same IP range. They don't have to be on a Homegroup, though it does make it (slightly) easier.
 
Why do you have to setup sharing? Why can't the printer be directly connect to the LAN (prinserver), my el cheapo HP does this.
Instead of internet sharing why not use a dedicated gateway all the machines connect via?

Just asking, don't know the exact scenario.
 
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