Want to set up the simplest wireless home network for your mixed Vista, XP, and Windows 7 computers? Want a network without a "boss" computer or cumbersome passwords that works even if some of the computers are not online and the simple rule for those that are connected is "share and share alike?"

Setting Up a Wireless Network with Windows 7
The objective of this article is to set up a simplified home network using a mix of a Vista desktop PC, a laptop running Windows 7 beta, and a laptop running Windows XP. Defining features of this network will be the lack of network passwords for local connections (both wirelessly or wired) and no single “boss” computer. Devices on the network will act as peers – no computer will rely on another computer to be present on the network – in order to reach the Internet, but it won’t be an ad-hoc network. File and folder sharing, of course, will depend on other computers being present, but we’ll look at specifying what folders we’ll share with others and these we will share and share alike.

Router Configurations
The most boss-like object in the network is the wireless router. For our purposes, we’ll presuppose that each computer can connect to the router. In our test network, the Vista desktop computer has the wired connection to the router and was used to set the router up. It’s very important that the router is not left at defaults and is set up properly because the security of the simplified network is based on the router and on having bot