[just3boys]

We just bought our boys a cheap desktop (emachine) windows vista and a laptop (toshiba satellite) with windows vista and have a HP with windows xp ,but we haven't bought a router yet (only the HP desktop is hooked up know) so need to know the best and what we will need to invest in wired,wireless ,plug in ,us the usb port, Linksys g or n?? HELP:confused:

[ScottGem]

There are several good brands; Linksys, Netgear, Belkin, D-Link are the leaders. I tend to prefer Linsys and have had very good experience with their tech support.

Whether you go G or N depends on what you want in distance and speed. If the PCs have built in G adapters, then you aren't going to get much out of the N routers.

[KISS]

Unlike Scott, I have had poor customer support from Linksys and their products didn't work.
A print server and a switch. The print server had all sorts of issues and had to be replaced with a Troy. That company actually worked with me to get my printer supported. It took a while.

I also owned a switch which would hang and require a power on reset.

Dyndns.org has had similar kinds of issues with Linksys routers.

See DynDNS -- News -- Service Availability Notice For Linksys Router Owners

[ScottGem]

Hmm weird. I've had three or four occasions to call Linksys tech support. Each time, the tect was able to resolve the issue, which was generally configuration not the product themselves. I've had 3 different routers (started with a wired, then added a wireless G and recently upgraded to an N) and all worked great.