Arrange a LAN Party to have a fun!

A lan party is a very simple and interesting way of recreation. In a LAN party friends come up at a common place with their Laptops or desktop computers, connect them together in a LAN (Local Area Network) and share whatever they want. The most common purpose of a LAN party is to play the games. However you can arrange a LAN party for your homework, data sharing or any other purpose. Here I will tell that how to arrange a LAN party in a simplest way.
Requirements:
1) Any number of Laptop or desktop computers (I assume that you have pre-installed windows XP and LAN cards on all of them)
2) Straight Cables (Click Here for detail)
3) A LAN switch (The number of ports on the switch must be equal or more than the number of computers)

Step-by-Step:
1) Arrange the computers in such a way that the switch is in a central location (so that the cables might be accessible from all computers)
2) Connect each computer with the switch through the Straight Cables.
3) Turn on all the computers and the switch.
4) Configure the network
a. Go to the desktop of 1st computer
b. Right click on ‘My Computer’ icon and click on Properties
c. Click on ‘Computer Name’ Tab from the new window
d. Click on the ‘Change…’ button and another window is opened
e. Give the Computer Name (e.g. Ahmad’s Computer). It should be unique for each computer.
f. Now choose the ‘Workgroup:’ radio button and enter the name of your network e.g. OfficeNetwork. Press 'OK'.
g. Right Click on 'My Network Places' and click on 'Properties'
h. A new window is opened. Right Click on 'Local Area Connection' and click on 'Properties'
i. Choose 'Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)' from the newly opened window and click on properties.
j. Choose 'Use the following IP address:' radio button from the newly opened window.
k. Enter '192.168.12.5' in the 'IP address:'. Subnet mask will automatically change. Leave all the other fields blank.
l. Click 'OK'.
m. Repeat the steps (b) through (l) on each computer but make sure to enter a series of IP addresses. i.e 192.168.12.6 for second computer, 192.168.12.7 for third computer and so on. Also make sure that the computer name (defined in step 'e') should be unique for each computer and the workgroup name (defined in step 'f') should be the same for each computer.

Restart each computer and your network is ready to work. Install your favourite multiplayer game on each of them to enjoy the LAN party!

(If you find this article useful then don't forget to click on "digg")