Today I setup a wireless home network by connecting the main PC in the lounge
to a wireless router and connecting the spare PC to a USB wireless network
adapter. Both the computers connected to the network and now share the
internet connection plugged into the router. On the main lounge PC I ran the
'Setup Home and Office Network' Wizard and setup a workgroup called
'HOMENETWORK' with file and printer sharing enabled. I ran the same wizard on
the spare PC and used the same workgroup name. The main PC now shows the
Shared Documents folders for both itself and the spare PC on My Network
Places. The spare PC will only show it's own Shared Documents folder in My
Network Places and not the folder from the main PC. This is a problem as I
want to be able to print from the spare PC using the printer on the main PC.
Both the computers are running Windows XP Professional with SP2.
Orry,
Start by checking the Windows Firewall settings. Is the File and Printer
Sharing exception enabled on both computers?
Check for a browser conflict between the WinXP computers and the Win98
computers. I"m not talking about Internet Explorer here. The browser is the
program that allows any computer to see any other computer on the LAN. Only 1
browser should be running on a 2 computer LAN.
Make sure the browser service is running on one of the computers. Control Panel
- Administrative Tools - Services. Verify that the Computer Browser, and the
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper, services both show with Status = Started. Disable the
browser service on the other computer.
After checking / disabling / enabling as above, power both computers off to
reset the browser settings on each. Then power both back on.
The Microsoft Browstat program will show us what browsers (I'm not talking about
Internet Explorer here) you have in your domain / workgroup, at any time.
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=188305
You can download Browstat from either:
<
http://www.dynawell.com/reskit/microsoft/win2000/browstat.zip>
<
http://rescomp.stanford.edu/staff/manual/rcc/tools/browstat.zip>
Browstat is very small (40K), and needs no install. Just unzip the downloaded
file, copy browstat.exe to any folder in the Path, and run it from a command
window, by "browstat status". Make sure all computers list the same master
browser.
For more information about the browser subsystem (very intricate), see:
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=188001
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=188305
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=231312
<
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winntas/deploy/prodspecs/ntbrowse.mspx>
<
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/archive/win95/w95brows.mspx>
The browser requires anonymous access, so look at registry key
[HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa], value restrictanonymous, on both
computers.
<
http://www.microsoft.com/windows200...2000/techinfo/reskit/en-us/regentry/46688.asp>
<
http://www.jsifaq.com/subf/tip2600/rh2625.htm>
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=246261
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=296403
The above articles refer to Windows 2000. Remember WinXP is NT V5.1, and Win2K
is NT V5.0.
Have you used the Registry Editor before? If not, it's a scary tool, but it's
pretty simple once you get used to it. Here are a couple articles that might
help:
<
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/...home/using/productdoc/en/tools_regeditors.asp>
<
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/registry>
Just remember to backup the key (create a registry patch) for
[HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa] before making any changes, if
appropriate.
From the Annoyances article:
You can create a Registry patch by opening the Registry Editor, selecting a
branch, and choosing Export from the File menu. Then, specify a filename, and
press OK. You can then view the Registry patch file by opening it in Notepad
(right-click on it and select Edit). Again, just double-click on a Registry
patch file (or use Import in the Registry Editor's File menu) to apply it to the
registry.
--
Cheers,
Chuck
Paranoia comes from experience - and is not necessarily a bad thing.
My email is AT DOT
actual address pchuck sonic net.
