Home LAN, 2 PCs Talking To Each Other A Few Days Ago, Now Not On Speaking Terms?

[(PeteCresswell)]

Local LAN was working fine a few days ago.

Now:

1) Both PCs can see the common workgroup that they're supposed to share.

2) The non-suspect PC can open the workgroup in a flash, but see only itself.

3) The suspect PC takes a looooong time just to open "Microsoft Windows
Network", and then even longer (as in 3-4 minutes) to attempt to open
the workgroup - only to end with
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"303 (the workgroup name) is not accessible.
You might not have permission to use this network resource.
Contact the administrator......
The list of servers for this workgroup is not currently available."
-----------------------------------------------------------------


I've re-imaged the suspect PC and run through the Network Setup Wiz several
times to no avail.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, a little voice is whispering "Firewall
Issue...", but I've been to the Window Firewall control applet and can't
find anything that helps.

?

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per (PeteCresswell):

Somewhere in the back of my mind, a little voice is whispering "Firewall
Issue...", but I've been to the Window Firewall control applet and can't
find anything that helps.

BTW, I have the same user name with the same PW logged on to both PCs.

I've tried turning Simple File Sharing both on and off.... no change, same
"..not accessible. You might not have permission..." message.

Can anybody comment on how to make Windows Firewall let LAN traffic through from
an explicitly-named other PC?