LostKnightsRPG.org

So, my neighbor Ryan wanted to give me a copy of Civilization 4 which, by the way, is a GREAT game, and we lacked either a portable hard drive or a flash drive large enough to handle it, so we tried to transfer between our Vista OS laptops. Vista includes software to create ad hoc wireless networks, we did that, but the transfer rate was SLOW. So, kinda on a whim, we closed the ad hoc and set up an ethernet cable between our two laptops, WITHOUT A ROUTER. Suprisingly, IT WORKED. We had something like 100megabit connectivity, and he transferred me a 14 gigabyte file in a matter of minutes. It should be noted that Windows XP cannot do this, I've tried.

All we did was plug an ethernet cable from my lan card into his lan card, it was simple, painless, and extremely effective.

similar transfers can be done through routers, wireless or otherwise, but this was massively convinient, and seems to be either an accident, or an undocumented feature in the vista software.

someone please test this and let me know if it works for you. My lappy is an HP and Ryan's was an alienware. You may have to toggle various network connectivity and discovery settings, and use a public folder with sharing on, and basically mess with your network setting in the Network and Sharing dialogue, but I'd like to see if this works for someone else. It was VERY cool.

This is actually dependant on multiple different things. There are NICs (Network Interface Cards) out now that do auto-crossover between two different computers at a hardware level, thus working out like you've described above regardless of the OS being used. As you imply, its also possible, though more difficult, to do it on a software/OS level.

In short, it probably has more to do with your hardware than anything else.

I should also point out that it is possible to directly hook up any machine with any other provided you use a specially prepared network cable (called a 'crossover cable') to do it. The main difference between the two is that two of the wires on one end of the connector are swapped around (crossed over).

hmm, I didn't know about the NIC cards. Though I'm sure Ryan's Alienware box has every trick in the book, my HP is nothing special. I'm not sure what sort of card I'm using, my device manager shows an Nvidia Nforce, though that sounds like software, not sure. Might have to just try it with various Vista boxes, taking note of the hardware onboard.

Most laptops have their NIC embedded in the motherboard to save space. The info is probably listed on the manufacturer's site for the model. Maybe.