Home Networking

[Steve G]

My home desktop is running W2000 Prof. My laptop is
running XP Pro.
They are both connected through a router which is
connected to DSL.
I can connect to the Internet from both computers.
Can I create a connection from the laptop to the desktop
in order to share the desktop's files and printer and if
so, how?
Help would be appreciated.
Steve

 

[Guest]

You would need to enable sharing on the drives. Open My
computer and right click drive C in the menu you will see
sharing click on that. That will open a new box and you
will then be able to share files. The printer is the
same. Just open the printer windows and right click the
printer and choose sharing. Again the sharing windows
opens and choose share. You may have to download the
driver for the other machine. meaning if the printer is
on the 2K machine you may have to get the drivers for XP
and vise versa. You might not have to.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your reply. I understand how to share the
drives but my problem is that although the 2 computers are
physically connected I cannot see the desktop (W2000) from
the laptop (XP) or vice versa.
Steve

 

[Guest]

Is the router assigning IP address? are there any
firewalls present? Make sure to check the built in
firewall on the XP machine. You will need to make sure
they both have simular IP address. IE... 192.168.1.xxx
where xxx represents the actual address of each computer
and would be different. subnet mask should be
identical.if any fiewalls are installed, try disabling
them and see if you can then view the network. If you do
have a firewall and after disabling you can see, then
open the firewall program and find out where you can
include the computers on your network.

 

[Chuck]

My home desktop is running W2000 Prof. My laptop is
running XP Pro.
They are both connected through a router which is
connected to DSL.
I can connect to the Internet from both computers.
Can I create a connection from the laptop to the desktop
in order to share the desktop's files and printer and if
so, how?
Help would be appreciated.
Steve

Steve,

Here are a few websites with useful tutorials, to get you started:
http://www.cablesense.com/
http://www.homenethelp.com/
http://www.practicallynetworked.com/
http://www.wown.com/

Please provide ipconfig information for each computer.
Start - Run - "cmd". Type "ipconfig /all >c:\ipconfig.txt" into the command
window - Open c:\ipconfig.txt in Notepad, copy and paste into your next post.
Identify operating system (by name and version) with each ipconfig listing.

Are you running both Client for Microsoft Networks, and File and Printer Sharing
for Microsoft Networks (Local Area Connection - Properties), on each computer?
Do you have shares setup on each?

Are you running NetBIOS Over TCP/IP (Local Area Connection - Properties - TCP/IP
- Properties - Advanced - WINS) on each computer?

Make sure the browser service is running on each computer. Control Panel -
Administrative Tools - Services. Verify that the Computer Browser, and the
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper, services both show with Status = Started.

On any XP Pro computer, check to see if Simple File Sharing (Control Panel -
Folder Options - View - Advanced settings) is enabled or disabled. With XP Pro,
you need to have SFS properly set on each computer.

On XP Pro, and with SFS disabled, check the Local Security Policy (Control Panel
- Administrative Tools). Under Local Policies - Security Options, look at
"Network access: Sharing and security model", and ensure it's set to "Classic -
local users authenticate as themselves".

On XP Pro, and with SFS disabled, if you set the above Local Security Policy to
"Guest only", enable the Guest account, using Start - Run - "cmd" - type "net
user guest /active:yes" in the command window. If "Classic", setup and use a
common non-Guest account on all computers. Whichever account is used, give it
an identical, non-blank password on all computers.

On XP Home, and on XP Pro with Simple File Sharing enabled, make sure that the
Guest account is enabled, on each computer. Enable Guest with Start - Run -
"cmd" - type "net user guest /active:yes" in the command window.

More about file sharing, between all different versions of Windows:
<http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...db-aef8-4bef-925e-7ac9be791028&DisplayLang=en>

Do any of the computers have a software firewall (ICF / WF, or third party)? If
so, you need to configure them for file sharing, by opening ports TCP 139, 445
and UDP 137, 138, 445, by enabling the File and Printer Sharing exception, and /
or by identifying the other computers as present in the Local (Trusted) zone.
Firewall configurations are a very common cause of (network) browser, and file
sharing, problems.

Cheers,
Chuck
Paranoia comes from experience - and is not necessarily a bad thing.