An internet question

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Possibly a stupid one. This is actually for my parents. They have DSL through AT&T. My mom's laptop is the one everything is plugged into. It's a modem attached to a wireless router attached to her computer. The wireless router is so that my dad can use his laptop in another room.

My parents are probably going to go on a vacation next month and mom wants to take her laptop along, so obviously she'll have to disconnect it from the router. When she gets back and plugs her computer back into the router, will the router still work so dad can use the internet on his computer? Or will I have to come by and re-configure the router?

To get the router configured in the first place, I had to call the support line for the manufacturer and have them walk me through it. I'd never have been able to figure it out on my own. My parents have me do all the techy-type stuff for them, since they're not very good with computers.

[Broomjockey]

As long as they don't turn the router off it should be fine.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

As long as they don't turn the router off it should be fine.

Gotcha. So the router has to stay plugged in or at least not get turned off. I don't know how to turn the router off.

[Chromatix]

The usual setup is that the modem controls the long-distance connection, and the router is plugged directly into it and takes care of sharing the connection between computers.

If that's the case, then neither laptop is in fact the "master" of the connection - the router and modem are. The laptops can be taken away and brought back without any trouble. Dad's laptop can even be used with it without the other one present.

(I've personally subverted that in my setup by using a full-blown computer as a router. But this has the same effect, except that I can do some very sophisticated things with my "router".)

The other possible setup is that a laptop is directly connected to the modem, and the router is connected to the "far side" of the laptop, which is running in internet-sharing mode. This is a Very Bad Idea because this laptop becomes a very fragile Single Point of Failure, but regardless you should be able to recreate the setup again by just plugging it all in and turning it on.

[lordlundar]

Gotcha. So the router has to stay plugged in or at least not get turned off. I don't know how to turn the router off.

usually by unplugging it.

A computer really only needs to be physically plugged into a wireless router for initial configuration purposes (for security and stability purposes) and if said machine doesn't have wireless. From that point on, it can be unplugged and if a device has a wireless, that can be used to connect to the network.

Assuming your mom doesn't connect to any networks while on vacation, she should be able to just plug it back in when they get back (if her laptop is running Win7, the connection settings are saved, so it's even easier) if she wants to. She can also run her laptop wirelessly and connect that way, with no ill effects.

Really, the only way you would need to reconfigure the router is if it somehow got back to factory settings.