Possible way to put Vista on XP Adhoc Network

I am planing to put two computers on a XP Adhoc network to share internet connection. I am having a Windows XP system which is connected to adsl modem. I had added a usb wifi adapter on the same. The adapter is installed and working well. Now in Vista system I bought a pci wifi lan card and installed it. It was is also working. But the issue is that the Vista system is not able to find XP. I had shared the internet connection and I hope Vista must be able to detect it. When I check in Windows XP system the same issue appeared. XP is also not able to find Vista system. Both system are on common work group and I hope there will be a applicable solution for the same.

The problem lies with the firewall. You must disable that and check it again. Just turn off your firewall and test it and I am sure Vista will able to connect to XP. I found this thing when I was also trying to access a public hotpot. The wifi was on but it was not detecting the connection. I turned off the firewall and it appeared. You will need to create a new connection form network and sharing center and then configure the same as public network. Then only it is going to work. If you create a home network then it will be password locked.

Run cmd and type ipconfig /all. Can you find connected network there. If not then your wifi is not able to read the active connection. Can you test the same on any other working device. Like a smartphone or the laptop. I am sure it is going to help you in that. It is correct that the security settings in your system is blocking the connection due to which you are not able to get connection actively. I had got the issue due to ZoneAlarm. I was not aware but one my friend told me to uninstall that. Once it was done the internet started working. Try to disable your antivirus and then check once again.

This worked for me. I had a Vista (client) and XP Media Center (host) and I uninstalled Norton after tinkering for a while and it now allows printing. So, Norton is a problem child!

Plus any software such as this that you can't easily stop via the task bar is questionable in my book.

Ok, I have the solution for anyone who wants to connect a vista labtop to a xp host desktop via an adhoc network.

The first thing you do is go to network connections on the host. You should have a wireless adapter installed.

Right click on wireless network connection. Go to properties, wireless networks tab and add a network with security settings etc. You should look up how to do this thoroughly before hand (how to set up an adhoc network in xp). Connect to the wireless network after it becomes available on the host network.

Your vista machine wireless card will see it and will be able to connect to it.

If you want to share the internet, you must then run the network wizard on host xp machine on the LAN and enable ICS. Make sure you choose the first option which is " This computer connects to the internet directly...." After the wizard is done running, choose finish. Right click on the local area connection, go to Advanced and check the option to allow other users to connect to the internet through this computer internet connection.

The TCP/IP property setting for the LAN will be set to obtain the ip address automatically.

The TCP/IP settings for the wireless network connection
ip address on the host should be 192.168.0.1 and subnet mask 255.255.255.0

The TCP/IPV4 settings for the wireless network connection properties for the client should be
ip address: obtain an IP address automatically
preferred dns server should be set to the ip address of the host wireless network connection which is 192.168.0.1

Now the client should be connected to the internet. Turn on file sharing if you want to share files.