A neighbor of mine has a Dell Dimension 8100 computer with windows XP Pro, ZAPRO, NAV 2006, and BoClean installed. She has just moved to a new house and I was able to set successfully connect the modem and the desktop computer for DSL.
She has a Linksys WRT54G wireless (v5) router that she would like to use. She has a desktop computer and a Dell laptop. My suggestion will be to hardwire the desktop computer to one of the four ports on the Linksys router and then connect the modem to the Linksys on the internet side. My question is as follows: a. If the computer is hardwired (cat 5 cable) to the Router, will I have to setup any security features in the Router before using it to connect to the internet, or just power up the modem, router, and then the desktop computer? I am looking for the security benefit of the router for the desktop. She does not plan to use the desktop in a wireless mode. I am trying to find out as much information on the internet as possible about setting up the router, but still having trouble understanding the procedure setup for a hardwire setup and a wireless setup.
b. Once I get the desktop working okay for about a week, I will then try to setup the wireless feature for the laptop. I am reading and trying to understand some downloaded internet material about the wireless feature of the router. However, my most immediate concern is to get the desktop working with the router for security purposes.
Thanks for any help, Sam.