Implement Windows Internet Sharing by ICS and Proxy Server

There're two methods to apply Windows Internet sharing - proxy server and ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) service of Windows. ISC is implemented by Microsoft as a feature of its Windows operating system however, there're many limitations and problems for this function such as -

• For both green hand and users who are even familiar with Windows operation system and network, it's complex to apply ICS.
• Some certain activities will cause loss of ICS connectivity. For example, if clients disconnect the network cable, you need to restart ICS service to make clients connect again.
• To use ICS, clients need to get IP addresses from DHCP, that means you can not specify IP addresses for clients manually.
• The flexibility and customization of ICS are worse than proxy server.
• ICS function was designed for Windows operation system, if other OS, it's hard to use ICS.

Considering the above lacks of ICS, we recommend proxy server for Windows Internet sharing. There are many proxy server softwares which you can use to build a proxy server however, CCProxy may be the most efficient one for you. As an easy-to-use proxy server software, CCProxy can help you building your own proxy server even in minutes. Please download CCProxy from here and try yourself following the bellow instructions.

1. Install CCProxy on a computer which is already conntected to the Internet. When installation finished, CCProxy will work as an anonymous proxy server immediately, no need for any other manual configurations.
2. Besides connceted to the Internet, This proxy server should also be connected to the other computers with a hub or a switch so that they can share Internet connection with the proxy server. If you have only two computers, you can even connect them directly by a crossover network cable.
3. To implement Windows Internet sharing, you also need to make proxy settings on the client computers for various network applications.

Proxy settings for IE

1. Click "Tools" -> "Internet Options";
2. Click "Connections" -> "LAN settings";
3. Enable "Use a proxy server for your LAN";
4. In fields "Address" and "Port" type proxy address and proxy port;
5. If nessesary, enable "bypass proxy server for local addresses";
6. You can also click "Advanced" to setup proxy server for different protocols;
7. Click "OK".

Proxy settings for Firefox

1. Click "Tools" -> "Options";
2. Click "Network";
3. Click "Connection" -> "Settings";
4. Select "Manual proxy configuration";
5. Input proxy server address and proxy port here;
6. Click "OK".

For other network applications such as Outlook Express, MSN Messenger, CuteFTP and so on, you can refer to proxy settings of popular software. However, there are some other network applications for which we can not make proxy settings directly, cause they have no proxy setting options. For this situation, you need to install some proxy client tools such as Freecap on the clients, please refer to how to configure proxy settings normally.