Can't see network computers

[Tom]

Hi

Any advise on the following would be very much appreciated.

Have 2 pc's and 2 laptops, all running XPP, and have set them onto a
network. Internet access is via a router on the network. All m/c's have
internet access the pc's and 1 laptop can see each other in their respective
My Network places & it is possible to search for the other m/c's by name
e.g. pc1, pc2 etc.

The 2nd laptop does not see the other m/c's on the network, searching for a
pc eg pc1 nothing is found, if searching for pc1 by its unc address of
10.10.10.17 it is found.

Have checked all network settings on laptop 2 but can't identify any setting
difference

What is the problem with the 2nd laptop & how can it be overcome?

TIA

Tom

 

[Malke]

Hi

Any advise on the following would be very much appreciated.

Have 2 pc's and 2 laptops, all running XPP, and have set them onto a
network. Internet access is via a router on the network. All m/c's
have internet access the pc's and 1 laptop can see each other in their
respective My Network places & it is possible to search for the other
m/c's by name e.g. pc1, pc2 etc.

The 2nd laptop does not see the other m/c's on the network, searching
for a pc eg pc1 nothing is found, if searching for pc1 by its unc
address of 10.10.10.17 it is found.

Have checked all network settings on laptop 2 but can't identify any
setting difference

I assume that by "XPP" you mean "XP Pro". See my standard "networking
problems" blurb below, particularly the part about XP Pro's Simple
Sharing setting:

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.

If one or more of the computers is XP Pro:

a. If you need Pro's ability to set fine-grained permissions, turn off
Simple File Sharing (Folder Options>View tab) and create identical user
accounts/passwords on all computers.

b. If you don't care about using Pro's advanced features, leave the
Simple File Sharing enabled. This setting must match on all the
computers.

Simple File Sharing means that Guest (network) is enabled. This means
that anyone without a user account on the target system can use its
resources. This is a security hole but only you can decide if it
matters in your situation.

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