Jon said:
I recently setup a home network with both computers running xp home
edition. When I try to access either computer under my network places
I get an error message that says \\laptop is not accessible. You might
not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the
administrator of this server to find out if you have access
permissions. The network path was not found. How can I fix this
problem? Thanks,
This is most commonly caused by a misconfigured firewall. Run the
Network Setup Wizard on both computers, making sure to enable File &
Printer Sharing, and reboot. 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 2005/06) which acts as a firewall, then you're fine. If you have
third-party firewall software, configure it to allow the Local Area
Network traffic as trusted. I usually do this with my firewalls with an
IP range. Ex. would be 192.168.1.0-192.168.1.254. Obviously you would
substitute your correct subnet.
Then create shares as desired. XP Home does not permit sharing of users'
home directories (My Documents) or Program Files, but you can share
folders inside those directories. A better choice is to simply use the
Shared Documents folder.
If that doesn't work for you, here is an excellent network
troubleshooter by MVP Hans-Georg Michna. Take the time to go through it
and it will usually pinpoint the problem area(s) -
http://winhlp.com/wxnet.htm
Malke
