can not see other computers on network.

I HAVE A 98 AND A XP SYSTEM. I HAD TO CHANGE TO A SWITCH
INSTEAD OF MY ROUTER, WHEN THE ROUTER WAS HOOKED UP I WAS
ABLE TO SHARE ALL RESOURCES. BUT WITH THE SWITCH ONLY THE
NET. I AM LOST I CHANGED NOTHING,I THOUGHT ALL I HAD TO DO
WAS PLUG IN THE SWITCH, AND EVERYTHING WOULD WORK. PLEASE
HELP.

tracon wrote:

> I HAVE A 98 AND A XP SYSTEM. I HAD TO CHANGE TO A SWITCH
> INSTEAD OF MY ROUTER, WHEN THE ROUTER WAS HOOKED UP I WAS
> ABLE TO SHARE ALL RESOURCES. BUT WITH THE SWITCH ONLY THE
> NET. I AM LOST I CHANGED NOTHING,I THOUGHT ALL I HAD TO DO
> WAS PLUG IN THE SWITCH, AND EVERYTHING WOULD WORK. PLEASE
> HELP.

First, turn off the capslock.

Second, check the IP addresses of your machines. You will probably
find, now that they are both being assigned "world" IP addresses by
your ISP rather than local ones by your router, that they are on
different subnets. To get them talking again, you'll have to set
entries in your routing tables.

Third, make sure your firewalls are running on both machines, since you
no longer have whatever protection the router was providing. Unless you
have a firewall or are fully up-to-date on your patches, you are likely
to make friends with blaster (or its expected successor) on the XP
machine within a few hours, if you haven't already.

Fourth, check your ISP contract to see whether they will henceforward
be billing you extra for the second IP address.

You may want to go back to using a router. They're cheap. In my
experience they're well worth what they cost.