Help with Setting up Home Network

[DaveyD]

Hi, I'm having a few problems with networking my home PCs... why is networking so annoying ?!

Right, I have 3 PCs on my Network, all connecting to a Linksys BEFSR41 4 Port Router. They can all access the internet perfectly fine, but I am utterly clueless with how to get them to see each other on the network.

1 PC is Windows 2000, the other two are Windows XP

On each machine the IP address is automatically assigned.

I have ran the Network wizard and each computer is part of WORKGROUP. I have set up at least one thing Shared on each PC.

When I open "My Network Places" and select "Computers Near Me" on the 2000 machine, it shows the 2000 Machine, thats it.

On both of the XP machines, I select "My Network Places" and select computers on Workgroup, it comes up with an error message stating that I have not got permission to do so.

Any Ideas?

Thanks a lot in advance.

[poolking]

Have you mapped the drives?

[DaveyD]

I havn't mapped any drives, no. In what way do you mean though?

[poolking]

Start > My Computer > My Network Places > Tools > Map Network Drive

I think you might have to be in the admin account on XP.

Someone will be able to give you more pointers as I no longer have a home network.

[DaveyD]

Just tried, it doesn't show any other PCs on the network on any of the PCs I have tried it on, just can't seem to get on the workgroup.

[C14RKEY]

thats the same thing that happened to me a while ago, but by magic it suddenly was able to see the other pc. only problem now is my hard drive broke and now my pc wont let me see the others on the work group

[javalord]

Try \\<machine name> or \\<ip address> for system you want to access.

It will ask you to login, so you might want to make a username/password just for that purpose.

[javalord]

Oh and another thing, software firewalls tend to block broadcasts of system presence. You may want to disable or add local systems as trusted to avoid it.

[DaveyD]

Update, I've just realised my Norton Firewall was blocking the ping attempts, and switched it off to try it out.

I can now ping the machines fine, and when I open explorer, I can get onto the machine by typing "\\IP" but NOT if I type "\\Machinename", I also still can't access workgroup stuff either.

At least I'm moving in the right direction

[DaveyD]

Has anybody else got any ideas?

[Jiff Lemon]

name resolution is the problem;
On very small networks its worth setting all machines to static IP's. Then create a hosts file and copy it to each machine.

so:
on one machine, click onto start, run, type cmd and press ok - you'll get a black DOS type screen.
Type ipconfig /all and press enter.
all you're really looking for is the gateway address (the ip of your router).

then chnage the IP address of each machine to suit; so for example if your router is 192.168.0.1, change the machines to 192.168.0.x - the x is irrelevant - 2,3,4 is as good as 20, 30, 40. The subnet mask will be 255.255.255.0, gateway and DNS are both the router address.

Then browse to c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc (for 2k) or c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc and you should see a file called hosts.
Open the file with notepad and add the machine names and IP's. Should look something like this:

127.0.0.1 localhost
192.168.0.10 Machine1
192.168.0.20 Machine2
192.168.0.30 Machine3

Save the file (it doesn't have an extension). Copy to usb key and plonk on each machine. You'll now be able to resolve names to IP address's.

[DaveyD]

Hmm, that's not worked either :/

My brothers machine (XP) and moms machine (XP) can both ping my windows 2000 machine fine, and see the shared stuff on it. Neither of the XP can be pinged from any machine.

Each machine has File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks and TCP/IP installed, each with an IP manually assigned and the host file updated with each IP.

Oh I hate networking

[Firelord]

do you have the firewall on on the XP machines? Also have you set a gateway on the machines? Does the Win2k machine have a firewall installed?

[Jiff Lemon]

yup, XP SP2 firewall probably causing you grief.

Control panel, switch to classic view, windows firewall.
Under exceptions, enable file and printer sharing.
Then under advanced, ICMP settings, allow incoming echo request.

[DaveyD]

Thanks guys, sorted now I can't believe how stupid I feel for not remembering the XP firewall ah well, me presuming it was automatically off was a silly idea.

Sorry for all the hassle etc