I set up VISTA with NM and had my home network running in ... say: 5 minutes? Then a thunderstorm struck, the OvisLink router burned out etc. A disaster. Installed all anew! Tried to redo my home network within Vista - I gave up after 3 hours, indeed. With NM again it took less than 5 minutes, meanwhile drinking a cup of tea! Any comments to that, Dr. John v. Kampen Granada Spain

Contrary to the above person who had a problem, I had the opposite experience, been trying to setup XP Networking for a couple days, but NM had me up and running in less than
15 mins on BOTH computers, amazing! XP Networking is not connecting both computers and I would like to use that as I and sharing just one folder, but the problems are driving me to Network Magic. It's a good, simple program that basically walks you through the process.

Thanks Olivier. Yes, I agree MAC filtering works very nicely and is pretty easy to setup - I use it myself at home.

Why did I not setup security on my modem router ; it's Mac filtering and that works nicely ; if now I Hide SSID , I ineveitably loose connection ; interferences with other networks are probably the cause of that ; not to speak about encryption ; what if you loose the key ; what if you type mistakenly aso..? That's relly something not terreibly attracting ; ; before I set ly Modemrouter Belkin 54G to filter MAC Adresses , I got terrible connection problems ; someone wanted to take my Bandwith almost permanently ; now it's fine , with Mac filtering apparently, I have no intruders . That's my small experience . OLIVIER GEBUHRER

Thanks for the comment Patrick. We agree that security setup needs to be much easier.

I agree with the basic premise that setting up all the security required is a real pain; takes 3 hours probably if you know what you are doing. I never had this problem with an SMC wired router I had for 6 years. May yet decide to go back to it!
Network Magic set up my shared printer for me and kudos for that. The NetWorkMagic challenge now is to get that security setup down to a minimum of key strokes and you have a world-beater software package.

Hi Bob,
Thanks very much for the feedback. We hear a lot of stories like yours from our customers and we never, ever get tired of hearing them. Glad your "netmess" (I love that) is now a "net-work."

My brother, who is a bit of a techie, told me to use Network Magic, because I was having soooo much trouble with my windows network, (wireless to my laptop) set up by my son in law who knows about these things. I couldn't believe how fast and easily that Network Magic set up the network. I can now print on printers, share files, copy files to and from. In fact I now have a network, where before I had a partial netmess. Great stuff for us nongeeks. Well done. It's amazing that after being stuck with Windows type things, when we find something that actually works how it is supposed to, we are so surprised. Again, well done.

Doc,
Our apologies that Network Magic has not performed as you had hoped. It sounds like you've run into trouble while trying to share folders across your network.

Can you please contact Network Magic Customer Support - they will work with you to try to resolve your issue:

To contact support:
http://www.networkmagic.com/support/
Toll Free Number: 888-812-9402
Mon-Fri, 9am-6pm Pacific Time
Sat-Sun, 11am-4pm Pacific Time
(We're closed on most US national holidays.)

Thanks - Mark

I originally got Network Magic several months ago and NEVER could get my network working with it. I have set up many networks in the past, but neither computer could communicate with the other even though the network map showed them to be there. the error message "computer could not be found" or "shared folder not available" always came up. I upgraded to this new version and get the same message. personally, it's not worth my efforts to continue with this product. I use a wireless router, but have my computers connected to the "wired" ports. I have been through all my firewall settings, even removed the firewall to see if the network would work, and nothing. the product "looks" good but doesn't live up to it's hype!

"Set it and forget it" - where have I heard that before - ah yes some late-night infomercial. wmrawls - yes I agree people don't want to deal with security. Just like people don't want to deal with backing up their data. They tend to only care about it when they get scared or burned by a system crash.

I agree setting up wireless security needs to be really easy for the mass market, and then maybe for more advanced people you give them some additional options to take their security further.

Of course setting up a wireless network is "Too Hard".(For the average computer user) And when you talk about encryption too most people their eyes glaze over. I set up networks for friends and family and they all think that the PC is like a TV. Set it up and forget it. Security is the last thing on thier minds until they hear some scary stories on the TV or radio and then they get thier panties in a Wad and call me and whine when I tell them what they need to do. But on the other hand when I try to push NM they don't want to spend the money, to expensive and to hard, go figure.....most people don't really deserve the PC they have anyway, they could get by with a dumb terminal....I will admit that the first few times I set up encryption it was a pain in the fanny but now its not a problem..but again it depends on the comfort level of the person doing the work...remember this is the American mindset that somone else should be the responsible party in all areas and they just want to turn it on and not be bothered with "Stuff".

OK, Anne Marie logs one vote for the "setting up wireless network security is way too time-consuming" camp.

Read the post you referred to Anne Marie, and totally agree. These days everyone has to become in some way their own "tech support" and for most people that is something they just don't want to do.

Some technology products, like the iPod or I would posit TiVo "just work" and even my Dad can figure it out. Other products require a PhD in tech support (or at least a teenager) to get working if an issue occurs.

Spot-on with your observations on this, particularly your second comment. Regarding network security, many people make (what they think is) the "logical" assumption that once set up, they are fine. It's a case of many non-techie people not having the right framework of knowing what question to ask, much less get that last important piece in place...and from my point of view, network setup isn't done until the security is implemented. As I blogged a few weeks ago on a family tech support issue, the question was one of “How am I supposed to KNOW that!?” applying equally to a list of home tech issues. This question was actually quite logical, coming from this retired education PhD who understandably justs wants to use her home technology - and not be an IT whiz to set up and support it.