Internet Sharing using ICS

One can share the internet with his friends using the Internet Connection Sharing option available in Windows.
Follow the below steps to share your internet:-

SERVER CONFIGURATION:-

Step1:-
On the server, you need to have 2 network adapters, one for LAN and the other one for Internet.

Step 2:-
You need to share the internet of the adapter which is directly connected to Internet. Here its the adapter with name "NET". Right click on it, and goto properties.

Step 3:-
Now in properties, click on the advanced tab.

Step 4:-
Now in this, you will see the option of "Internet connection sharing". Select it and click "Ok".

Note that after you click OK, the IP address of LAN will be reset to 192.168.0.1/24 . So you need to change the IP address of LAN as per your address.

CLIENT COFIGURATION:-

Step 1:-
Goto the remote machine which wants to access internet via server. Open its network adapter properties.

Step2:-
Now in this, enter the IP address of server at 2 locations:- One at Gateway and other at DNS server.

Click OK.

Now you will be able to access internet directly without needing to enter the proxy. Remove the proxy settings if you have entered them in web browser.

TRICK:-
I have used this method a lot at hostel to get internet from my friends. I was in NBH and I used to download a lot of stuff using this. They don't know about this. So I used to modify the settings of their server and access internet from them. They couldn't find me and they thought that their internet has gone slow. There were 4-5 servers there and I had used net from each one of them. I loved being there as each one had atleast 600 Kbps connection and I used to get internet from each one of them. I would run 2,3 virtual machines and would use different server in each of them. Then I was able to download different stuff from different servers. So virtually I was having a net connection of about 5 Mbps of my own.... :). I used download a lot of stuff using this. Its a nice trick.... :)

Create bootable windows 7 pendrive from "Customized Windows 7 image"

For creating a bootable pendrive of customized version of windows 7(image modified containing pre-configured softwares and settings), the steps change a bit.

First five steps are same. For them, refer the following article: http://learnwithrahul.blogspot.com/2011/12/how-to-create-bootable-windows-7.html

Sixth step changes for the customized images. You need to mount the customized windows 7 image. Now explore it and find the directory containing bootsect.exe.

Now navigate to that directory from command prompt in administrative mode and fire the command:-
bootsect /nt60 I:
(Where I: is the drive letter of pendrive)

Next steps are the same.

How to create bootable windows 7 pendrive for installation

For creating a bootable windows 7 pendrive, here are the Pre-requisites.

1. Windows 7 DVD or image.
2. If image available, then tool to mount the image, like "virtual clone drive" or "daemon tools".
3. Pendrive of size greater than the size of windows 7 DVD or image.

Creating Bootable Windows 7 pendrive:-

Step1:- 
Open Command prompt with administrative privileges. Goto Start->Accessories->Command Prompt->Run as Administrator

Step 2:-
Enter "Diskpart" in command prompt. It will load the diskpart utility in the command prompt.

Step 3:-
Enter the command "List Disk". It will list all the available disks with their numbers. In the diagram below, the number of my USB Drive is 2.
Enter the command "Select disk <disk_no>" where disk_no is the number of the disk. As per the example below, its "select disk 2".

Step 4:-
Now "Clean" the disk. Also make it primary partition. For that fire the command "Create partition primary". Now mark the drive as "ACTIVE" and format it keeping the filesystem to NTFS. See the diagram below:-

Format the partition by entering the command "format fs=NTFS"

Step 5:-
Now assign a name to drive by entering the command "ASSIGN" and then exit from the diskpart utility. Don't close the command prompt.

Step 6:-
Now insert the Windows 7 DVD or mount the image of windows7. Note down the drive name. In my case, my windows 7 DVD Drive is 'K'. So now navigate to K:/boot folder. Also note down the drive letter of the pendrive. In my case, it is 'I'. Now enter the command:-

K:\Boot> bootsect /nt60 I:
(Where I: is the USB/Pen Drive)

Step 7:-
Now copy all the contents of windows 7 DVD to pendrive. You now have a bootable pendrive ready.