I have a laptop with a wirless card all set up for networking, it is connected to my host computer, the internet is shared, but I have no idea how to create an internet gateway. I am using Windows 2000 Pro and a Belkin F5D6050 ver.2 (drivers installed )

I think you may have a different interpretation of what an internet gateway is.

A gateway is a computer that is SERVING host computers...almost like a huge firewall server would. Let's assume that your Windows 2000 computer will operate as a gateway...we'll designate it COMPUTER A.

COMPUTER A will need to have 2 network cards to operate as a gateway...whether wireless or other. The first network card would be connected to your outside line...your modem...and would be exposed to the outside world. Obviously you don't want this one to serve your LAN its access because then people would be able to get at all you computers. This is why you would put another network card in and MANUALLY ASSIGN it an internet protocol (IP) address. When you manually assign it an address, you're giving the card a way to be different from you outside line.

You second card will be a beacon to your second computer (COMPUTER B). By plugging in COMPUTER B (or wirelessly detecting) you'll be able to see the manually assigned IP address given to the 2nd NIC in COMPUTER A. Now open up your network configurations for your COMPUTER B and look for "Gateway"

Enter in the manual IP address of your second Network Card on COMPUTER A into the blank for "Gateway". Ensure that your subnet is the same on both computers. Ensure that both computers are on the same workgroup. Type in a manual IP adress for COMPUTER B (usually 192.168.0.X where X is a number between 1 and 254). Reboot and you're set..

If you are unsure about any steps above, please post. We'll step you through it.

Ok ok, here's my current home setup:

My HOST computer is using a U.S. Robotics 22Mbps Wireless PCI and has shared broadband DSL (always-on) connection to the net. Currently there are two other computers connected, one using another U.S. Robotics and the other using NetGear.

The reason I was confused about gateway is on my network connections I have (under Internet gateway) BTopenworld Broadband on DAVE (my host computer's name).

Personally I dont mind if the wireless card on the HOST computer can be accessed by anyone (with the right settings) becuase we live in a crummy place where no one is going to loiter outside our house

Anyway im not exactly sure how to do all this, becuase the other two PCs were set up by a friend who passed away quite a while ago (coincidence?) so I have no help whatsover in setting up the connection for my Laptop. Everything has been configured for connecting to the host computer, there is signal strength in the site status and the icon in the task tray shows that it is connected, but I am still unsure on how to allow my Laptop to connect to the net, using the LAN configuration. Windows internet HAS been set up for connecting via LAN.