How to Enable Shared Access on a Network Connection in Windows 2000

ID: Q237254

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
Microsoft Windows 2000 Server

SUMMARY

With the Shared Access feature of network and dial-up connections, you can use Windows 2000 to connect your home network or small office network to the Internet. For example, you may have a home network that connects to the Internet by using a dial-up connection. By enabling shared access on the computer that uses the dial-up connection, you are providing network address translation, addressing, and name resolution services for all computers on your home network.

MORE INFORMATION

To enable shared access on a network connection:

In Control Panel, double-click Network and Dial-Up Connections.

Right-click the connection you want to share, and then click Properties.

On the Shared Access tab, click to select the Enable shared access for this connection check box.

If you want the connection to dial automatically when another computer on your home network attempts to use external resources, click to select the Enable on-demand dialing check box.

NOTE: To enable shared access, you must have administrative rights.

IMPORTANT: You should not use this feature in a network with other Windows 2000 Server domain controllers, DNS servers, gateways, DHCP servers, or computers configured for static IP addresses. When you enable shared access, the network adapter connected to the home or small office network is given a new static IP address configuration. Existing TCP/IP connections on the shared access computer are lost and need to be re-established.

Configuration and Usage Issues

The shared access feature is intended for use in a small office or home office in which the network configuration and the Internet connection are managed by the Windows 2000-based computer on which the shared connection resides. It is assumed that on its network, this computer is the only Internet connection, is the only gateway to the Internet, and that it sets up all internal network addresses.

You cannot modify the default network configuration by enabling shared access. This includes items such as the range of private IP addresses that are handed out (DHCP allocator), enabling or disabling DNS, configuring a range of public IP addresses, or configuring inbound mappings.

If your home office users need to gain access to a corporate network that is connected to the Internet by a tunnel server from a shared access network, they need to create a virtual private network (VPN) connection to tunnel from the computer on the shared access network to the corporate tunnel server on the Internet. The VPN connection is authenticated and secure, and creating the tunneled connection allocates proper IP addresses, DNS server addresses, and WINS server addresses for the corporate network.

You may need to configure programs and services to work properly across the Internet. For example, if users on your home network want to play a game with other users on the Internet, the game must be configured on the connection in which shared access is enabled. Services that you provide must be configured so that Internet users can gain access to them. For example, if you are hosting a Web server on your home network and you want Internet users to be able to connect to it, you must configure the Web Server service.

Additional query words: NAT ICS

Keywords : kbtool
Version : WINDOWS:2000
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbhowto