[SOLVED] Using Win XP on a home network w/o any Internet Access

[box o rocks]

My question relates to an earlier (solved) post I made here
The retro build I wanted to assemble doesn't need to have internet (WWW) access, so no security issues should arise🤞using the old unsecured OS. But it would be really convenient to have access to my home NAS. Can I give XP access to the home network w/o actually being connected to the internet? If so, please point me in the right direction. Thanks.

 

[Lutfij]

If the storage is located on your home(isolated) network, it's still considered a NAS but to answer your question the NAS doesn't need internet to connect/operate and as such you should be able to hook the retro build to a NAS. Make and model of your NAS, networking gear at hand?

 

[box o rocks]

If the storage is located on your home(isolated) network, it's still considered a NAS but to answer your question the NAS doesn't need internet to connect/operate and as such you should be able to hook the retro build to a NAS. Make and model of your NAS, networking gear at hand?

The NAS is a Buffalo Linkstation LS210. It is connected via Ethernet to my Netgear WINDR4300v2 router.
My XP PC would also be connected to the router by Ethernet. But of course, the router has access to the internet (comcast cable modem).

 

[kanewolf]

The NAS is a Buffalo Linkstation LS210. It is connected via Ethernet to my Netgear WINDR4300v2 router.
My XP PC would also be connected to the router by Ethernet. But of course, the router has access to the internet (comcast cable modem).

Don't set a gateway address in the XP pc. You should have LAN access without access to non-LAN addresses.

 

[USAFRet]

And if the NAS requires HTTPS to access its admin page, you probably can't do that from the XP box.

 

[box o rocks]

And if the NAS requires HTTPS to access its admin page, you probably can't do that from the XP box.

In fact, it does.

 

[hotaru.hino]

In theory, you could do this by having the XP machine on another local network and the NAS box connected to it as well, and this local network has no access to the internet.

How this can be achieved is another matter. Can the router create a VLAN that doesn't access the internet? Otherwise you'd have to create a physically separate network, which would require at the minimum a network switch and another NIC on the NAS.

 

[box o rocks]

I'm afraid you folks are getting too deep in the weeds for me now. So, I'll just assume it is not something I am able to easily do. Thank you for the feedback.

 

[USAFRet]

I'm afraid you folks are getting too deep in the weeds for me now. So, I'll just assume it is not something I am able to easily do. Thank you for the feedback.

Just a question, because we see this sort of thing often....Why an XP based system?
What is your underlying reason for it?

 

[BFG-9000]

Safest would be to have the NAS on a network not attached to the internet at all. HTTPS works fine on any Firefox-based browser such as Firefox v52.6.0 ESR from 2018 or MyPal from last year--you just have to click through "I understand the risks" and "Confirm security exception" each time.

Any devices that you want to access both the internet and the NAS should have two NICs--one for each network (yes, one could be Wifi so you may already have that). You will also need either a spare router, or just a switch if you are willing to set static IP addresses on the network not attached to the internet.

 

[box o rocks]

Just a question, because we see this sort of thing often....Why an XP based system?
What is your underlying reason for it?

I cleaned out an area of the house recently and found two huge boxes of old games and other programs that I have a nostalgic affinity for, along with stacks of old 5 1/4" & 3 1/2" disks with info and pics that I would like to peruse thru again. I even found several disks containing my first QBasic programs I wrote/compiled. (Yeah, I'm an old fart from the PC-DOS era)
But back to the games... they won't run on W10 or W7. Tried that. But I remember using those games when I moved from Vista to XP and they still worked.

 

[USAFRet]

I cleaned out an area of the house recently and found two huge boxes of old games and other programs that I have a nostalgic affinity for, along with stacks of old 5 1/4" & 3 1/2" disks with info and pics that I would like to peruse thru again. I even found several disks containing my first QBasic programs I wrote/compiled. (Yeah, I'm an old fart from the PC-DOS era)
But back to the games... they won't run on W10 or W7. Tried that. But I remember using those games when I moved from Vista to XP and they still worked.

Run XP in a VM rather than a whole physical system.

 

[box o rocks]

Run XP in a VM rather than a whole physical system.

I would nave no idea how to do a virtual machine in W10. I know... Google.

 

[USAFRet]

I would nave no idea how to do a virtual machine in W10. I know... Google.

well, the VirtualMachine concept is a thing in and of itself.

Conceptually weird, but see it as running a whole new PC. It just happens to live inside your current one.