Home network fails to work without Netbeui

[Guest]

First some history: I have had a wired home network for a fairly long time,
encompassing up to 5 PC's, a Dlink DI-604 router (currently revision E, I
believe), and a DSL modem.

Originally all PC's were Windows 98 systems. Over time, there were both 98
and XP Home systems, using NetBeui for network compatibility, then finally
all PCs were XP SP2 Home systems. Since all of the XP systems were still
using NetBeui when the last 98 system was replaced with an XP Home system, I
just put NetBeui on it also and let it go. Since things (file & printer
sharing, internet access, etc.) seemed to work fine I never changed it.

All of the systems currently run Windows Defender, the free version of
Zonealarm, Spybot 1.4, Spyware Blaster, and Norton Systemworks (includes
Norton Antivirus). I keep them all pretty much up to date, including XP.

Enter my son's new "look good, go fast" Windows Vista Premium system,
freshly minted 3 or 4 days ago. Pretty blue lights, blazing speed, dual
monitors, huge hard drive, and ... No network connectivity!

Assuming that Vista must need to have NetBeui on it also in order to connect
to the network in its current configuration, and not immediately finding
anything stating to the contrary, we put NetBeui on it also. Still nothing.
Well, that is not entirely true, the router knows he is there and he can
access the internet, just not any of the other PC's or vica versa.

Thinking that maybe Vista did not get along with NetBeui, the next step we
took was to remove NetBeui from all of the systems. The good news is that all
of the PC's can still access the internet over the router. The bad news is
that now none of the PC's can see any of the other PC's.

I have verified all of the settings that I know to check, re-ran the wizard
for home networks, and have read and used many of the thoughts presented in
this forum, as best I can.

Each PC has:

A unique name.
The same work group (Home).
Shares set on all PC's.
Client for Microsoft Networks, File & Printer Sharing, Internet Protocol
(TCP/IP).
Enabled NetBIOS over TCP/IP.
Disabled LMhosts Lookup.
Created a NodeType registry entry set to 1 on one system that that was
showing Unknown in ipconfig /all.
Signed in using the Administrator level user account.
I have tried adding each of the PC's IP addresses to the firewall trusted
zone in Zonealarm, and then shutting down Zonealarm entirely.

At some point last night I finally got the XP systems to be able to ping
each other in a command window, but not the Vista system. I continue to get
the "Home is not accessable..." message if in Windows Explorer, and "The
Network path was not found" using Run>\\PCname.

I realize this has been a long post, but hope I have included some relevant
information to start with. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

DCL.

 

[Guest]

Hi Jack,

I appreciate your quick response. Now that you mention it, my son put this
on one of the XP systems yesterday. He said he could then see but not
interact with that XP system on some type of network "Map" that Vista
apparently has, but still could not find it via Windows Explorer or
Run>\\PCname, nor would the XP system see or ping his Vista system.

I would prefer to fix things so his Vista system is included in the network,
as opposed to using NetBeui for just the XP systems. On top of that, since XP
is supposed to be able to be set up without the use of NetBeui, and having
spent a couple of days now trying to make it play nice together, I have to
see it through just because. As is usually the case, there is probably some
setting or some such hiding somewhere that I am missing that will
miraculously make everything happy.

I will definitely remain open to any further suggestions.

Dale.

 

[Jack \(MVP-Networking\).]

Hi
NetBEUI is not available with Vista, but it can stay on the WinXP.
However while the WinXP computer would be able to keep sharing (using
NetBEUI) they need TCP/IP sharing to communicate with Vista.
So you need to find what the trouble of Sharing through TCP/IP is other with
you would not be able to share with Vista.
Some people reported that patching WinXP with this,
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...1D-EE46-481E-BA11-37F485FA34EA&displaylang=en ,
helps Vista to communicate with WinXP computer.
Jack (MVP-Networking).