Networking frustration

[Jim B.]

My situation involves a three-machine local area network.
Two machines have Windows XP Pro and the third is running
Win 2000 Pro. They are connected through a LinkSys
router (Cat-5 RJ45 connection). One of the Win XP Pro
machines is an older installation (2 months), and the
other is a new installation. All three have had all
available critical updates installed.

The problem lies in trying to get the three machines to
access each others's files and printers.

All three machines see all three as members of their
workgroup when "Network Connections" is used from
the "Control Panel."

The first (older) Win XP Pro machine can see and read
files from the Win 2000 machine and vice-versa. The Win
2000 machine can access a printer attached to that Win
XP Pro machine.

The second (new) Win XP Pro machine cannot access either
files or printers on either the first Win XP Pro machine
or the Win 2000 machine.

Pinging: The Win 2000 machine gets a response from both
Win XP Pro machines. The first Win XP Pro machine gets a
response from the Win 2000 machine but not from the
second Win XP Pro machine. The second Win XP Pro
machine gets a response from the Win 2000 machine but
not from the first Win XP Pro machine.

File and printer access: The Win 2000 machine can access
files and printers on the first Win XP Pro machine. It
shows a "SharedDocs" icon for the second Win XP Pro
machine but displays a "The network path was not found"
error message when attempting to access files or
printers.

The first Win XP Pro machine can access files on the Win
2000 machine (no printers attached to it) but displays an
error message that includes "The network path was not
found" when accessing the second Win XP Pro machine.

The second Win XP Pro machine shows a window asking for
user name and password when attempting to connect to the
Windows 2000 machine. When connecting to the first Win
XP Pro machine, it displays an error message that
includes "The network path was not found."

The router has been disconnected and reconnected from its
power source, and all machines have been shut down and
restarted multiple times in this process. Both Win XP
Pro machines have been run through the home and small
business networking setup wizard several times, trying
different possibilities. Both are presently set to
connect through a residential gateway.

The first Win XP Pro machine shows both a 1394 connection
and a local area network connection. The two are
bridged. The second Win XP Pro machine shows only a
local area network connection.

All steps in the networking troubleshooter have been
taken and all of its suggestions have been followed, with
no change.

 

[jason]

Dear Jim
Firstly, what are the ip addresses for each machine are
they on the same subnet to be sure of this when you ping
each other the mahcines that fail to ping do they give -
timed out message or host unreachable mesaages? or any
other meesage also can you ping 127.0.0.1 form each
mahcine?

file print shairng- try this -check both server and
worksation service on all machines if any of these
services have stopped restart them - if they are all
statted -then only on the mahcines giving the network path
not found error please restart only the workstation
service on that mahcine and the server service on the
mahcine it is trying to connect to i hope you get my dirft
see if this helps many thanks

 

[Billy Talton]

Jim,

Just solved this frustrating yet common issue....

To see all of the clients on a NT domain, NetBEUI protocol has to be
installed on the W2K Pro maichine. Then you have to add the mappings
(of IP addresses to host names) to the HOST file for each member of
the domain you'd like to browse (My HOST file was located at
C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC) Hope this helps.

Sincerely,
Billy Talton
Cornerstone Consulting
http://www.cornerstone.net