Is my router a Lan?

I've had this question for quite some time now. i have a couple games i have on two computers (half life, counterstrike, the specialists, etc) and i was wondering if when i go to play the multiplayer games if i could just go into lan, instead of having to download steam on both computers, sign up for multiple steam accounts and so on. This would be great because then i could get a faster game. my connection in network connections in control panel says that its a lan, but im not sure if thats true because im using a linksys router, not a hub or switch and i can't share files (at least i dont think i can anyways) on the two computers. I'm using the router to share my dsl connection, and im using windows xp pro on both my computers.

 

yes, routers have a built in switch allowing for a lan. just make sure all computers are connected to that single router. if you want, you can attach you own switch to the router to expand the preexisting 4 or so ports, but with only two computers, it will be a waste of money. anyhow, the computers not seeing each other on the network just means you need to configure both machines for filesharing, but if you type in "\\computername\" in the explorer bar, replacing "computername" with the name of the other computer, you should be able to access it.

 

awesome, does the fact that this is a wireless router have anything to do with it. and another thing, how do i enable file sharing. do i just right click on the files and select share, dont i have to set it to allow it though?

 

yeah, you'll have to configure any software firewalls in your computers to allow file sharing, along with the right click dealy with any shared folders. you may also have to configure the router as well, since there are some wireless routers out there that don't like filesharing among computers. and if you share a drive or something, make sure that there's no dollar sign at the end of the share name. the $ effectively hides the share.

 

alright, it doesn't seem to be working. i went through on my computer and did the Home network setup in my network places. then after that i took a network disk that it had made on the floppy and put it on the other computer. i made sure that the workgroup name was the same "mshome". for some reason though only the computer that im on is shown on the network places, not both of them. and when i go onto mshome from my computer that im on right nwo, explorer freezes. my router is the linksys 802.11b. im not sure if that needs to be configured and if it does, i have no idea how to do it. thanks for the help btw.

 

alright i got it so that i can view both computers on my other computer when i click on mshome. but when i go to view the stuff in this comptuer on that computer, it says i dont have permission, how do i set it so that i do have the permission to access the files from btoh comptuers. btw, im still having trouble accessing mshome from this computer, explorer continues to crash.

 

A lot of Links concerning Sharing here: Sharing Disk Drives Between Computers on Windows Network.