Software router i suppose

[jj]

Hi peeps

After a bit of advice, and i dont want adive like us elinux or buy a hardware/router, cause i want to do what i want to do with exisiting hardware and software I can download.

Right got a gateway pee cee compaq deskpro 350 mhz pentium II, 64mb ram, win win2kpro on it, its got two nics, and my usb broadband modemn is connected to this.

I have got a higher spece pee cee also runiing win2kpro and a laptop running p2 266, 64 mb of ram running win98se

I have got the network up and running, but obvioulsy the other pee cee cant see the laptop cause they are connected to different nic, and so are on diff network segments.

I wont to be able to share the internet between all the three pee cees and for all three pee cees to be able to share each others resources directly.

Now I know if I was running winxpro on the gatway machine i could just use that wondeful feature called bridiging, but im not, so i cant.

SO waht i really want is your lots advice on either software that can do that for me, or basically a software router i can set up on the gatway machine.  Sorry for the long post, and thanks in advance for any ideas or suggestions

[jj]

Thnaks for the reply, ill give it a try when i get chance

[jj]

Holly cow, my thread just reappeared from no where, anyway I got it sorted, just installed xp on gateway machine and bridged the two connections, works like a charm.

On a differnet note, I have got a 266MHz pentium 2 dell laptop with 64mb or ram,I tried win98se, win2kpro on it, and both were so slow booting and doing anything it was unfunny, so for a lugh i thought ill install xp, should be funny, u could have knocked me over with a feather it boots in no time, and is very responsive, i was flabbergasted, never expected it to be more responsive than win98 on such a low spec machine

[jj]

Well i know all the trollers and haters are going to jump on me, but xp pro is a very fast, stable, easy to use, intutive OS.  Cant see what it gets knocked so much(I know there a re still problems), but on the whole a very mature and user friendly OS.

I do a similar thing, just bridge the two connections, and the run winmx on the gateway machine and use realvnc to control it

[jj]

@ DANDUDE

I dont normal answer people with a chip on their shoulder, but if you are going to go out of your way to help a pee cee user lol, then give the correct advice eh....

Thanks for the help!!!!

But if you read the post i was looking for an easy way to bridge two seperate network segments under win2kPro as easily as u can with xp by using the bridge connection feature.

[jj]

Thanks everyone for their elp and suggestions, I will try that smoothwall, im after a realiable firewall , apart form zonealarm, cause the free verison just dont like internet connection sharing and even the pro version dont work all the time, sometimes lets traffic trought he gateway to other pee cee, other times no