is it just me or is networking with windows somewhat too complicated?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Lorenzo Sandini
  • Start date Start date
L

Lorenzo Sandini

Hi folks,

I've posted in this group before and I usually have found answers to my
requests or in other threads. I have been away from this place for a
while, happy with my home network setup, but I am back out of curiosity
about Gigabit ethernet and stuff.

I am amazed to see in the list of groups I usually read, that this group
has the most messages per day. And when I look at the messages, the
topics are often the same:

"Computer A sees B, but not the other way around"
"Can't share my printer in workgroup"
"Can't see winXP computer from Win98 laptop"
"long delays when accessing shares on computer B in same workgroup"
"computer B doesn't show in the workgroup computers list"
etc...

In my case the computers are all running either WinXP home or pro, they
are connected to a linksys ADSL modem/WLAN router either wirelessly or
by wire, and I have no big problems sharing files and printers in my
workgroup.

Oh yes, one XP home laptop can't access the shares on one XP Pro machine
while all the others can, and I can't figure out why...

For some reason, even with all updates applied, Windows XP firewall is a
pain you know where, and I disabled it and replaced with another
software firewall + integrated antivirus. This cured almost all
problems, but raised others...

Many websites are dedicated to curing those network issues. If it were
so easy they wouldn't exist ! Windows is supposed to be user friendly,
and the wizards should take care of all this, but it doesn't seem to be
the case for everybody...

Any comment to this ?

Lorenzo
 
Lorenzo said:
Hi folks,

I've posted in this group before and I usually have found answers to my
requests or in other threads. I have been away from this place for a
while, happy with my home network setup, but I am back out of curiosity
about Gigabit ethernet and stuff.

I am amazed to see in the list of groups I usually read, that this group
has the most messages per day. And when I look at the messages, the
topics are often the same:

"Computer A sees B, but not the other way around"
"Can't share my printer in workgroup"
"Can't see winXP computer from Win98 laptop"
"long delays when accessing shares on computer B in same workgroup"
"computer B doesn't show in the workgroup computers list"
etc...

In my case the computers are all running either WinXP home or pro, they
are connected to a linksys ADSL modem/WLAN router either wirelessly or
by wire, and I have no big problems sharing files and printers in my
workgroup.

Oh yes, one XP home laptop can't access the shares on one XP Pro machine
while all the others can, and I can't figure out why...

For some reason, even with all updates applied, Windows XP firewall is a
pain you know where, and I disabled it and replaced with another
software firewall + integrated antivirus. This cured almost all
problems, but raised others...

Many websites are dedicated to curing those network issues. If it were
so easy they wouldn't exist ! Windows is supposed to be user friendly,
and the wizards should take care of all this, but it doesn't seem to be
the case for everybody...

Any comment to this ?

Lorenzo
Click to expand...

I agree. M$ made very little effort to get XP to easily network with W9x.

Maybe they limited their integration effort in the belief that everybody
would migrate from W9x to XP. Maybe they intentionally limited ease of
integration in order to coerce W9x users to migrate to XP. Either way,
they did a poor job in this area of XP.
 
Hi folks,

I've posted in this group before and I usually have found answers to my
requests or in other threads. I have been away from this place for a
while, happy with my home network setup, but I am back out of curiosity
about Gigabit ethernet and stuff.

I am amazed to see in the list of groups I usually read, that this group
has the most messages per day. And when I look at the messages, the
topics are often the same:

"Computer A sees B, but not the other way around"
"Can't share my printer in workgroup"
"Can't see winXP computer from Win98 laptop"
"long delays when accessing shares on computer B in same workgroup"
"computer B doesn't show in the workgroup computers list"
etc...

In my case the computers are all running either WinXP home or pro, they
are connected to a linksys ADSL modem/WLAN router either wirelessly or
by wire, and I have no big problems sharing files and printers in my
workgroup.

Oh yes, one XP home laptop can't access the shares on one XP Pro machine
while all the others can, and I can't figure out why...

For some reason, even with all updates applied, Windows XP firewall is a
pain you know where, and I disabled it and replaced with another
software firewall + integrated antivirus. This cured almost all
problems, but raised others...

Many websites are dedicated to curing those network issues. If it were
so easy they wouldn't exist ! Windows is supposed to be user friendly,
and the wizards should take care of all this, but it doesn't seem to be
the case for everybody...

Any comment to this ?

Lorenzo
Click to expand...

Lorenzo,

Everybody who posts here has a problem. The question is not how many problems
are there, but how many solutions are there?

Having read about the browser (you did read some of the articles, right?), why
not contribute your diagnostics, and see if your problem can be solved. It's
great that you did try to figure it out yourself, but if you can't, why not give
the helpers here a chance to help you, instead of moaning how complicated it is.

Give us "browstat status" and "ipconfig /all" for the two problem computers, and
for one other computer with no problems. And let's see if your problem is too
complicated. Many here might learn from your experience.
 
Peer to Peer networking has never been a good idea. With Firewalls,
etc., it is getting harder to do as time goes by.

Client / Server model is best (IMO), especially if you have any file,
print, or application sharing going on.

Access everything from a server, backup that server every night, and the
workstations themselves become replaceable and networking is so much
easier to configure and manage.
 
Chuck (and all readers),

I absolutely agree on the fact that posts with problems/solutions are
more useful to all readers that empty moaning. And the purpose of this
post was to moan and comment on my personal experience, and nothing else :)

As fas as I am concerned, I am happy with the way my peer-to-peer
network now is now working, and I can cope with the computer "A" not
seeing shares on computer "B", since it works the other way around.

My "easy" solution was to setup a FTP server and client on each machine.
Even possible to interrupt big transfers, keep queues and restore broken
file transfers. This has worked flawlessly, and in parallel with normal
"workgroup" networking. I now installed the printer on an printer
server, so computers access it directly through the router, it doesn't
have to be connected to a computer anymore.

I am moving to a new house in september (bought a family house, yipee)
and I'll probably set up a big server for storage somewhere in the
basement, and all other computers as clients. This will be a whole new
world for me, with probably plenty of new problems to solve :)

Some people build miniatures of the Golden Gate with matches, and they
have their own problems (and newsgroup ?). Fortunately I don't depend on
my network for commercial or professional use, I just do it for fun at
home :)

Cheers,

Lorenzo
 
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