Not able to access Network

Why am i not able to access network?

Today i encountered a weird problem. One of my client have two computers running Windows XP Professional. He access internet using DATA CARD (BSNL EVDO). He wanted to use the same connection with another computer. So he asked me to network. What should i do? Internet connection sharing came to my rescue. I just opened the Network connection, selected the dial-up connection opened Advanced properties tab and tick the box for sharing.

It should automatically change the LAN IP to 192.168.0.1. but it did not happen. So i manually changed the IP address to 192.168.0.1. In the second computer i put the address 192.168.0.2. But still i can't access the first computer from second.

After several attempts and restarts i checked the services (Control panel->Administrative Tools->Services). If found that DHCP client and Server services were not running. I started them manually. Now the networking works smoothly. File sharing was working. Internet also works. But those two services did not start automatically.

Every time windows starts starting those services is not good. So i decided to create ms-dos batch file and put the net start command to start those services. The syntax is very simple NET START SerivceName

Service name can be found by right click -> Properties. For instance, the service name of DHCP client is 'dhcp'.

I created a batch file with those two service and put it in windows startup. Now the network works. I don't have to reformat the Windows. Reformatting is tedious with installation of device drivers, installing applications etc. My client wanted to avoid this. So this is the workaround.

The essential Windows services for networking are DHCP Client, DNS Client, Server. The functionality of these services are,

DHCP Client: Manages network configuration by registering and updating IP addresses and DNS names

DNS Client: Resolves and caches Domain Name System (DNS) names for your computer. If this service is stopped, your computer will not be able to resolve DNS names and locate Active Directory domain controllers. If this service is disabled, any services that explicitly depend on it will fail to start.

Server: Supports file, print, and named-pipe sharing over the network for your computer. If this service is stopped, these functions will be unavailable. If this service is disabled, any services that explicitly depend on it will fail to start.

Other services may be required for additional functionality, but the above mentioned services are essential bar-bones for basic networking with file sharing.