Networking experts a few questions please....

[Snow-Munki]

Hi,

went to a clients house to have a look at her network, and going back again next week to have a closer look.

From what i saw it was just setup as default, as in workgroup is MSHOME and all ipaddresses were left to default.

however whenever going to network places and view workgroup computers it kept bringing up an error box saying something like can't be found... any ideas why this might be ?

is it best setting up the network with my own typed in ip addresses, there are about... 6 computers on the network all connected sharing files and printers...

[Tifosi]

What OS?
Can you access the individual machines for network shares i.e. \\pc1

[mike_w]

Can you see the computers in Network Neighbourhood? Does it come up with an error message when you try to see the computers, or just when you click on them? If it's when you try to actually access the computer, then you might need to configure the firewall to let other computers access the computer. To make this easier, you might want to set up the computers in the same IP range so that you can just set that IP range when configuring the firewall.

Also, have you tried searching for the computers (Start/Search/For Files and Folders.../Computers in Windows 2000).

[Moby-Dick]

XP firewall ?

if the workgroup is MSHOME then its bound to be XP , w2k machines went for a default name of workgroup.

[Howard]

If they're not in the same IP range then you won't be able to access them, but I wouldn't have thought it'd bring up an error in MNP

If so, set the IPs sequentially, like 192.168.0.1, 192.168.0.2, 192.168.0.3, etc.

Then try again. If not, then try pinging each computer. And ensure file and printer sharing is enabled on each.

Do you have any servers or routers on the network? You could setup DHCP on a server or router which will make the assigning of IP addresses easier.

[Snow-Munki]

pinging works fine...

in order to map the network drive in the end just for a quick fix, i mapped it via the ip address, however if this ever changes then i'm stuffed !

they are all Windows XP, didn't check if it was home or pro, but will assume its Pro for now...

So is it best to set the ip address manually then ?

what should the gateway be in that case, the ip address of the router right ?

[Moby-Dick]

thats correct - but tbh the router shoudl be handing out DHCP if you dont have a server doing so.

You've also got a namew resolution issue with no local DNS/WINS server in place - windows is going to try and pull netbios names off the network , but if the XP firewall in place , then the NETBIOS requests would be ignored , and hence no name resolution.


If you do go fixed IP , then you could look at HOSTS file entries for name resolution , but its a bit of a brute force fix.