I know there is no such thing as a dumb question, however.

[Joseph Mama]

As you may or may not of heard.. I got ICS working on my Win2k Server and its Win2k Pro and Win98 clients!! Whoo hoo!!

So basically we have a useless little lan connection via the netgear NIC, and Internet access via the 3com NIC.

Now here is my question.
If I purchase a router to handle the Internet sharing vs. ICS will we lose our useless little lan, and just share internet access?

It seems that we will no longer need the netgear NIC if I get the router. Or can it stay in the server and keep our useless little lan going?

Any help is appreciated, the answer will affect my decesion to plunk down the cash for the router.. Netgear or Linksys??

The server will be running IIS.. the clients just browse, email, quake II etc..

Thanks!!!!!!!!
Joe

[JackMDS]

Hubs, routers, switches, DSL, LANs, WANs...? (http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=48)

[MosDef112]

You can purchase a router and get the added benefits of NAT, while also keeping your "useless little LAN." LOL

[Joseph Mama]

Hey cool, thanks for the info... I dropped the ca$h on the Linksys Beefy41 or whatever its called..

I was going to get the Netgear piece, but they were sold out of them.. I am reading the Linksys manual now.. It doesn't seem that bad... The reason I was going with the router was for a little more security.

One more question though.... Everything is in place now with ICS, do I need to uninstall ICS?? OR just reconfig the Linsys with my IP info....

Thanks again for all the help everyone!!

Joe Mama

[MosDef112]

You can uninstall ICS, router will take care of that portion of your setup for you.

[CompGeek83]

get a netgear rt314, it has a built in hub, just plug each computer into it, if you already have a hub, you can get the rt311, which is a little cheaper, after this there is no need to have more than one network card in each computer, and your lan will continue to work the same as it is now. even with iis running you don't need a second network card, as the "server" no longer serves the internet to the other computers, the router does this

try this link for more info and instructions

http://www.practicallynetworked.com/

[Joseph Mama]

I already paid for the Linksys unit, plus I hate wait for things to be available :)

I am going to read through all the posts and double check everything out...

Thanks to all who answered the S.O.S. call ;) If you think of anything else PLEASE let me know.... I check here a lot..

thanks
Joe