I recently wanted to share my Android phone’s internet connection to two Windows computers. After some doing, here is the solution (naming might differ on different versions of Windows, I’m using XP):
- Download and install PDAnet for your Android phone and on one of the Windows computers, referred to as Computer1.
- Once installed, follow the directions for connecting Computer1 to the internet. PDAnet includes these instructions, but basically you turn on the PDAnet app on the phone and click “Turn on PDAnet” or something like that. (You also need to have USB debugging enabled, see instructions.) You need to install the software on Computer1 before you connect to your phone via USB. If your phone prompts you with four choices, such as Charge, USB Mass Storage, etc., select Charge.
- Now in the system tray on Computer1, right-click the PDAnet icon and select “Connect”. After this, Computer1 should have internet access.
- Next connect Computer1 and Computer2 with an ethernet cable. Older network adapters require a cross-over cable.
- On Computer1, go to the properties of the ethernet connection (e.g. “Local Area Connection” -> r-click -> “Properties”). Double-click “Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)”. Set the IP address to “192.168.0.1” and subnet mask to “255.255.255.0” and click “Ok” out of all of that.
- On Computer1, go to the properties of the PdaNet Modem. Click the “Advanced” tab. I disabled my firewall to make things easy. Click the box “Allow other network users to connect through this computer’s Internet connection”. In the drop-down box, select the ethernet connection you configured in Step 5. Unselect the other two boxes. Click “Ok”.
- Still on Computer1, click “Start”->”Run” (or hold the Windows keyboard button and press “R” at the same time). In the box, type “cmd” and press “Ok”. In the black command window type “ipconfig /all”. Look for the PdaNet connection “PPP adapter for PdaNet Modem”. Under that should be “DNS Servers . . . . “. Write down that number, as it will be used on Computer2.
- On Computer2, set up the ethernet connection using the same procedure as in Step 5, except use the IP address “192.168.0.2” and for the Default Gateway put “192.168.0.1”. While you are there, click “Use the following DNS server addresses” and put the number you wrote down in Step 7 under “Preferred DNS server”.
- You should have internet access on both computers now!
If you are having problems, try this: back on Computer1, type “ping 192.168.0.2”. If it says “Reply from 192.168.0.2…” then you are most of the way there. Otherwise go back and check the steps. Type “ping 74.125.229.16” to see if you can access Google without DNS name resolution. If it doesn’t reply, then PDAnet isn’t connected or a step was skipped. Finally type “ping www.google.com” to see if the DNS configuration is correct. If it doesn’t reply, then look at the settings seen in Steps 7 and 8.