[markw10]

I just purchased a Airport Extreme Base station that I hooked up. Eventually I want to be able to connect a USB printer to it to share as well as a USB Hard Drive to share as a network drive.
The immediate problem I have though is I can't get the basics to work, working with my shared Comcast Internet as well as being able to access shared drives on my main Windows XP Desktop.

My setup is as follows:
I have a main desktop running WinXP. That is currently connected to the router/switch to act as a server as well as share the internet. This is where my Airport Extreme Base Station will be installed. My internet will hook in here and as well all 3 Ethernet ports will be used.
Ethernet Cable 1 connects to the main 'server' Win XP computer
Ethernet Cable 2 will go to another switch that then connects to two large ethernet printers.
Ethernet Cable 3 will go to another area of the house into a switch where it connects to another
WinXP desktop as well as a Linksys Wireless Access Point

I'm not sure how well the network printers will work later as well as the server drive and USB printer but my main concern is being able to share my Comcast Internet as well as reach the server shared drive.

Internet: I ran the Airport Utility and it found the Airport Extreme Base Station. I was able to set it up with encryption. Even my non server WinXP basestation found it through ethernet. The problem is I could not get internet on any computer. I seem to have followed the instructions selecting static ip/dhcp and it seems it pulled my settings and filled them in for me. I even unplugged the modem for 10 seconds to reset it but I never once got it to find internet. Instead the amber light kept blinking on the base station indicating this error. Is there anything I'm doing wrong and how can I get this to work?

Shared Network Drive: Eventually the USB drive on my base station will take place of my WinXP server but for now I basically use it as a basic server. I have a shared hard drive in it that I use to store large data files and media. It is a WinXP created network called mshome. I am able to connect to it from any PC and my Mac. Will this still be possible when my Airport Extreme Base Station is used instead.

One more question: I will replace my router but plan to keep my Linksys WAP since I have many 'g' devices and want to only use my Airport Extreme Base Station for n devices. Will a laptop connected to this linksys WAP be able to access the printer and server drive on the Airport Extreme Base Station as well as use the shared internet?

Thanks in advance for any help with these issues.

[ghporter]

The first problem is that you're trying too hard. Use the router/switch to share everything and it should all fall into place.

Connect this way: cable to Comcast modem, ethernet from modem to router's WAN port (that's very important!), then each wired computer (and the AirPort Extreme Base Station) to a router LAN port. You can connect a wireless access point to one of those LAN ports too-I do that to provide my own wireless network.

The only complication is the fact that you have to tell the Extreme to be an access point. You do that by unchecking the "share a single IP address" box on the Network tab of the Admin Utility.

Does connecting things this way resolve some of your issues?