Wifi - Two wireless networks

A friend of mine asked me to look at their small business network.
They have two wireless networks active. WiFi Network #1 gives them
access to the Internet that another business allows them to access.
WiFi Network #2 is their own local network with their shared printer.
The shared printer is wired up to the router/hub while the rest of the
computers are connected wirelessly.

Here is there issue. Every time they want to print, they need to
disconnect from Network #1 and connect to Network #2. Print what they
want, and then reconnect back to Network #1.

They can't physically hook the printer to network #1. Is there a way
to configure their XP laptops to use network #1 for everything except
to send printer requests across network #2? Thanks!

rjones872 wrote:
> A friend of mine asked me to look at their small business network.
> They have two wireless networks active. WiFi Network #1 gives them
> access to the Internet that another business allows them to access.
> WiFi Network #2 is their own local network with their shared printer.
> The shared printer is wired up to the router/hub while the rest of the
> computers are connected wirelessly.
>
> Here is there issue. Every time they want to print, they need to
> disconnect from Network #1 and connect to Network #2. Print what they
> want, and then reconnect back to Network #1.
>
> They can't physically hook the printer to network #1. Is there a way
> to configure their XP laptops to use network #1 for everything except
> to send printer requests across network #2? Thanks!

You can't do this with *one* wireless network adapter. You *might* be
able to do it with *two* wireless network adapters in each computer.
Usually, this question comes up in the context of having a wired NIC
connect to one network and a wireless NIC connect to another.

In any case, you'd have to set up some static routes in the routing
tables of each of the laptops. Start your research here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/159168
The following is for Vista, but should apply to XP as well (use the IPv4
information):
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/w...s-on-a-network


--
Lem

Apollo 11 - 40 years ago:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ap...0th/index.html

On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:03:19 -0700 (PDT), rjones872
<rjones872@gmail.com> wrote:

>A friend of mine asked me to look at their small business network.
>They have two wireless networks active. WiFi Network #1 gives them
>access to the Internet that another business allows them to access.
>WiFi Network #2 is their own local network with their shared printer.
>The shared printer is wired up to the router/hub while the rest of the
>computers are connected wirelessly.
>
>Here is there issue. Every time they want to print, they need to
>disconnect from Network #1 and connect to Network #2. Print what they
>want, and then reconnect back to Network #1.
>
>They can't physically hook the printer to network #1. Is there a way
>to configure their XP laptops to use network #1 for everything except
>to send printer requests across network #2? Thanks!

You can't do it.

Apart from getting your own Internet connection, your best bet is to
get an additional nat device to act in client mode on network #1 and
then connect the network #2 router/hub to it with a lan cable. Then
with a static route on the #1 router you can have your own self
contained private network and Internet.


Jim.

On Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:39:57 +0000, James Egan <jegan@jegan.com>
wrote:

>Apart from getting your own Internet connection, your best bet is to
>get an additional nat device to act in client mode on network #1 and
>then connect the network #2 router/hub to it with a lan cable. Then
>with a static route on the #1 router you can have your own self
>contained private network and Internet.

In fact you won't need a static route on the #1 router. Sorry!



Jim.