Resolved XP Pro multiple network connections possible?

Hello. A friend of mine has a 3 PC peer to peer network. For many years he has had to deal with a very slow DSL called SDSL. Unfortunately there does not seem to be a better solution as I can see no improvement in faster internet for his area.

Anyhow he purchased a mobile 4G hotspot from T-mobile which is faster to many extents and I purchased some micro size usb wireless adapters for each desktop to connect to the hotspot. All machines are on XP Pro.

Here is the problem. Originally he was connected via Ethernet cable on each machine. Now when I connect to the hotpsot I cannot access the internal network because only one connection can be used at a time. When I disconnect from the wireless now the internal network works.


So my question is the following. In XP Pro can I have two network connections at the same time?

I want the Wireless connections only for the internet and the Ethernet Cable connection to access the internal network resources. I really hope this can be done because disconnecting and switching continuously is not an option I want them to have. To much of a pain.

Thanks for any answers.

 

As you found out can only have 1 connection active at a time.

BUT – is a way to get what you want.

Google for- Internet Connection Sharing Win XP
There's LOTS of good articles, some with pictures.

Basically – 1 computer connects to internet, rest of network connects thru that computer.

 

I forgot about this thread and this was already solved for me somewhere else. I now have two connections running on all 3 PC's.

1 connection is only for the internet which uses a gateway in the network properties. This done thru the T-Mobile hotspot.

The second connection is for the internal lan and in all 3 PC's no gateway is given so it does not conflict with the wireless connection. I never knew this was possible but it is. We are going on 3 weeks now and the only hiccup was with 2 network printers that was easily resolved and that was it.

I can post later if it would help others the exact instructions. If it is not needed you can close this thread.

 

I should mention that the way it was fixed was by having two separate segments/connections. The wired connection had the IP info manually inputted but no Gateway was put in. If I did it would conflict with the wireless. I never knew this was possible until I tried this.

So the internal network is fine and all requests to internal are complete. They can print, scan and access shared folders.

On the Wireless connection, it is assigned automatically an IP and Gateway and that connection is used only to get onto the internet with the hotspot from T-Mobile. This also works great and leaves the internal network alone. So if anyone thinks this cannot be done well I have proof that it can.

I have not tried this on Windows 7 just XP