How to Connect Laptop to Laptop

Laptops are portable PCs that you can carry with you wherever you go, thus being a great tool for business. Of course, you may use a laptop if you aren’t a businessman as they are versatile ways to get the job done. Thanks to the portability of these machines, you can connect two laptops with each other using LAN (Local Area Network) or Wirelessly. Either way, this works well and yields fantastic results if you use it right.

Benefits of Connecting Two Laptops

As we mentioned, the two laptops might be connected for several reasons and benefits. For example, you can use this technique for a quick file transfer between the two computers. Once you are connected, just copy and paste your data, and you’re good to go. Also, this can work for gamers, as they can play multiplayer games with a reliable connection, especially when we talk about LAN connection. You can see that the benefits are almost infinite and that’s the sweetest part of this feature. Below are the possible ways you can connect your laptops.

Possible Ways of Connecting Two Laptops

1. Using an Ethernet (Crossover) Cable

Ethernet cables come in all shapes and sizes, and if you happen to use an old laptop, you must get the crossover cable. This cable ensures that the connection will be reliable. For the newer laptops, you can use a classic Ethernet cable that you have at your home. Rembmer that some of the laptops don’t have a network port, so you might as well try the wireless method if that’s your case, which is the next method I will cover. The steps of this method are below.

1. Find the network port on your laptops and connect each side of the cable. These ports are usually located on the sides of your device;
2. Using both laptops, click on the Start button, navigate to Control Panel and click on it.
3. Under the control panel, search for System in the Search Box located in the upper right corner.
4. Open the System tab and then scroll to “Computer name, domain and workgroup settings”.
5. Under that category, you’ll see “change settings” feature. Left click will open the new window called “System Properties”.
6. At the bottom of “System Properties”, you’ll see the button “Change”; left-click on it.
7. Remember that you need to use BOTH COMPUTERS during these steps. If so, then enter the SAME name for the workgroup on both PCs.
8. Both of your laptops need to be in the same workgroup, so make sure that you do that on both laptops.
9. If you finished the steps above and successfully changed the workgroup names and put both laptops in the same workgroup, click on “Apply” and close the window.
10. Restart both laptops in order for the changes to take effect.

2. Connecting Wirelessly

Wireless connection is much easier to do and doesn’t require additional hardware like Ethernet cable. On top of that, wirelessly connected laptops don’t need to be at the same place! You can wirelessly connect to the laptop that’s far from you, and that’s the main benefit of this method. However, the connection might depend on your or that laptop’s network, so it depends on the availability of network and its quality. The steps are below.

1. Click on the Start button on both computers, then navigate to Control Panel.
2. In the upper right corner, in the Search Box, type “HomeGroup” and the results will pop up.
3. Click on the “HomeGroup” section and the new window will appear.
4. In the bottom right corner, there is a button called “Create a homegroup”. Left click on this button will open the next window. Note that you can’t use this if you are already in a homegroup.
5. In this new window, once again look at the corner of it and click on the “Next” button.
6. The new window called “Share with other homegroup members” will appear. Now you have to choose what will you share with the members.
7. Choose from Pictures, Videos, Music, Documents or Printers & Devices from the window and left-click on “Next”.
8. In the middle of the screen, the password will appear in a yellow box. Copy this password somewhere or write it down on the paper.
9. Now take a look at the second computer. You should be able to see new HomeGroup in the HomeGroup window. However, don’t create a new HomeGroup, but join the one you created.
10. You will be prompted to enter a password on the next step. Take a look at the one you wrote down and enter it.
11. Now, you can freely share the data over the network.

3. Connect Windows and Mac using Crossover Cable

A crossover cable is a great tool for connecting your Windows laptop to your Macbook and vice versa. Here are the steps to do it.

1. Click on the Start button in the lower left of the screen and then navigate to File Explorer and left-click on it. Note that you can find File Explorer in your taskbar on Windows 10, 8 and 7 also, so you may not need to open Start.
2. In your file explorer, you can select the folder you want to share, or create a new one to share with your connected Mac.
3. Select the folder then look at the top-left side of the window. There should be a button “Share”. Left click on the button will open an additional menu.
4. Click “Specific People” in the menu and then click on the drop-down arrow.
5. Here, select “Everyone” and click “Share” in the bottom-right part of the window.
6. When prompted, click “Done”.
7. On your Mac laptop, click “Go”, which is at the top of the screen and then click on “Connect to Server”, located at the bottom of that menu.
8. In the text field, type your Windows’ IP address and click “Connect”.
9. The new window will appear with a box saying “Registered User” which you should check. Furthermore, there are two text fields in which you need to type your username and password on the Windows PC.
10. Upon doing so, find the data you want to share on your Windows PC. Open the shared folder, copy and paste the data into it.
11. On your Mac laptop, open Finder, click on the Windows computer’s name on the left side and choose the shared folder.
12. Select the shared data, then click Edit at the top of the screen.
13. Click copy and find the folder you want to store your data to.
14. Use Ctrl+V to paste the files into the desired folder.
15. You can share from Mac to Windows by putting the files in the shared folder on Mac and then open that folder on Windows laptop and copy the files to the desired location.

Connecting two laptops isn’t that complex and you should be able to do it with ease. I hope that our steps helped you in doing what you want, as there are numerous benefits of the connection. With these methods, you can now easily share your files with the other machines, as well as do some multiplayer gaming smoothly.