1 out of 6 PCs cannot connect to My Network Places

[k8an]

Hi

I have a network of 6 computers via wired router. I am only able to
access 5 out of the 6 PCs on My Network Places.

The 1 computer in question:
- I have run the 'Set up a home or small office network' wizard but I
still cannot see the files/folders of the other PCs.
- I have successfully connected to the internet via the network
- When I click 'view workgroup computers', nothing appears
- When I click 'view workgroup computers' from any of the other PCs, I
am only able to see the PC I am having a problem with but unable to
view/access the files/folders when I double click on the icon.

I would appreciate your help in helping me to solve this problem.

Thanks

k8an

 

[Roberto de Cornielle]

See Malke's response to a similar question I posted recently [Roberto
Cornielle - access problem]

rgds
Roberto

 

[Bill Meyer]

Check to make sure each computer has a unique name and has the same work
group name. The response to check on a previous question was from an answer
to me which said that you can only have 5 connections on an XP home system.
This is sort of true except that you can have as many systems as you like on
the network but no more than 5 can connect directly to one of these. I have
14 systems on a wired network which all share a program on one computer. I
am running a combination of XP Home and Vista on all of these and they all
show on the network and now can connect to all. My problem would up to be an
IP address conflict which gave me the error that I had too many connections.

 

[k8an]

Check to make sure each computer has a unique name and has the same work
group name. The response to check on a previous question was from an answer
to me which said that you can only have 5 connections on an XP home system..
This is sort of true except that you can have as many systems as you like on
the network but no more than 5 can connect directly to one of these. I have
14 systems on a wired network which all share a program on one computer. I
am running a combination of XP Home and Vista on all of these and they all
show on the network and now can connect to all. My problem would up to be an
IP address conflict which gave me the error that I had too many connections.

Hi Bill

Thank you for your message.

How can I get all 6 PCs to appear on my network places?
What options do I have? Do I need to change my OS? Buy new hardware?

I really need to get all 6 PCs talking to each other.

Thanks for your help.

k8an

 

[Malke]

k8an wrote:

How can I get all 6 PCs to appear on my network places?
What options do I have? Do I need to change my OS? Buy new hardware?

I really need to get all 6 PCs talking to each other.

You don't need to buy anything. You just need to set up networking properly.
From your (scanty) description, I'd guess that you have some misconfigured
firewalls.

Here are general network troubleshooting steps. Not everything may be
applicable to your situation, so just take the bits that are. It may look
daunting, but if you follow the steps at the links and suggestions below
systematically and calmly, you will have no difficulty in setting up your
sharing.

For XP, start by running the Network Setup Wizard on all machines (see
caveat in Item A below).

Problems sharing files between computers on a network are generally caused
by 1) a misconfigured firewall; or 2) inadvertently running two firewalls
such as the built-in Windows Firewall and a third-party firewall; and/or 3)
not having identical user accounts and passwords on all Workgroup machines;
4) trying to create shares where the operating system does not permit it.

A. Configure firewalls on all machines to allow the Local Area Network (LAN)
traffic as trusted. With Windows Firewall, this means allowing File/Printer
Sharing on the Exceptions tab. Normally running the Network Setup Wizard on
XP will take care of this for those machines.The only "gotcha" is that this
will turn on the XPSP2 Windows Firewall. If you aren't running a
third-party firewall or have an antivirus with "Internet Worm
Protection" (like Norton 2006/07) which acts as a firewall, then you're
fine. With third-party firewalls, I usually configure the LAN allowance
with an IP range. Ex. would be 192.168.1.0-192.168.1.254. Obviously you
would substitute your correct subnet. Do not run more than one firewall.

B. For ease of organization, put all computers in the same Workgroup. This
is done from the System applet in Control Panel, Computer Name tab.

C. Create matching user accounts and passwords on all machines. You do not
need to be logged into the same account on all machines and the passwords
assigned to each user account can be different; the accounts/passwords just
need to exist and match on all machines. If you wish a machine to boot
directly to the Desktop (into one particular user's account) for
convenience, you can do this. The instructions at this link work for both
XP and Vista:

Configure Windows to Automatically Login (MVP Ramesh) -
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/Autologon.htm

D. If one or more of the computers is XP Pro or Media Center, turn off
Simple File Sharing (Folder Options>View tab).

E. Create shares as desired. XP Home does not permit sharing of users' home
directories or Program Files, but you can share folders inside those
directories. A better choice is to simply use the Shared Documents folder.

For XP and Windows 2003 Server, MVP Hans-Georg Michna has an excellent small
network troubleshooter.
http://winhlp.com/wxnet.htm

Malke

 

[Chuck [MVP]]

Hi

I have a network of 6 computers via wired router. I am only able to
access 5 out of the 6 PCs on My Network Places.

The 1 computer in question:
- I have run the 'Set up a home or small office network' wizard but I
still cannot see the files/folders of the other PCs.
- I have successfully connected to the internet via the network
- When I click 'view workgroup computers', nothing appears
- When I click 'view workgroup computers' from any of the other PCs, I
am only able to see the PC I am having a problem with but unable to
view/access the files/folders when I double click on the icon.

I would appreciate your help in helping me to solve this problem.

Thanks

k8an

I'd start by looking for a misconfigured personal firewall blocking traffic, on
any one of the computers.
<http://networking.nitecruzr.net/2005/05/your-personal-firewall-can-either-help.html>
http://networking.nitecruzr.net/2005/05/your-personal-firewall-can-either-help.html

And check the NetBT setting on each computer.
<http://networking.nitecruzr.net/2006/07/advanced-windows-networking-using.html>
http://networking.nitecruzr.net/2006/07/advanced-windows-networking-using.html

And look at logs from "browstat status", "ipconfig /all", "net config server",
and "net config workstation", from each computer, and diagnose the problem.
Read this article, and linked articles, and follow instructions precisely
(Download browstat!):
<http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/troubleshooting-network-neighborhood.html#AskingForHelp>
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/troubleshooting-network-neighborhood.html#AskingForHelp