Is SP2 a Disaster for XP and Local Networks?

[W. Watson]

I'm really beginning to regret the decision to use SP2 on my XP Pro machine. This is
not a smooth transition with respect to my local network and firewall capabilities. I
had hoped to pick up some error corrections, and some clean features, as well as some
protection features. Perhaps I'm in a fairly unique position. I was using McAfee
firewall, Norton's Nav, Mozilla browser/mailer, spybot and flying along pretty well.
No viruses, and no break ins. Comfortable and able to do the useful work I bought
these computers for in the first place.

I've had to uninstall McAfee firewall to get a firewall back, MS firewall. I cannot
reach my other two computers on my local network. They don't seem to exist any
longer. It looks like from the helpful "Network XP Network Problem Solver" that I may
need to uninstall yet more third party software, and make some other changes. This is
not fun. I certainly did not need to disrupt my other activities on the computer to
become a system administrator. Perhaps I'll break through this given some more time,
but I do not like the way this is going.

--
Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)
(121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet
(Formerly Homo habilis, erectus, heidelbergensis and now sapiens)

"There's no such thing as a stupid question,
but they're the easiest to answer!" -- anon.

Web Page: <home.earthlink.net/~mtnviews>

 

[Leythos]

I'm really beginning to regret the decision to use SP2 on my XP Pro machine. This is
not a smooth transition with respect to my local network and firewall capabilities. I
had hoped to pick up some error corrections, and some clean features, as well as some
protection features. Perhaps I'm in a fairly unique position. I was using McAfee
firewall, Norton's Nav, Mozilla browser/mailer, spybot and flying along pretty well.
No viruses, and no break ins. Comfortable and able to do the useful work I bought
these computers for in the first place.

I've had to uninstall McAfee firewall to get a firewall back, MS firewall. I cannot
reach my other two computers on my local network. They don't seem to exist any
longer. It looks like from the helpful "Network XP Network Problem Solver" that I may
need to uninstall yet more third party software, and make some other changes. This is
not fun. I certainly did not need to disrupt my other activities on the computer to
become a system administrator. Perhaps I'll break through this given some more time,
but I do not like the way this is going.

The simple matter is that you can install SP2, and then disable the
firewall if you have a protected network. I have about 30 domains that
I'm sure are secure and I run XP SP2 with the SP2 firewall disabled.
Since the firewall does not add anything to our security it would just
be another fault point - I have the SERVICE disabled.

 

[W. Watson]

The simple matter is that you can install SP2, and then disable the
firewall if you have a protected network. I have about 30 domains that
I'm sure are secure and I run XP SP2 with the SP2 firewall disabled.
Since the firewall does not add anything to our security it would just
be another fault point - I have the SERVICE disabled.

In my simplest case, which doesn't work either, I have this XP Pro SP2 machine and
another Win2000 SP6 machine. When I stepped up to SP2, the Win2000 machine
disappeared from My Network Places. What service have you disabled? If I specify in
the Security Center that I don't want firewall protection from MS, I still can't see
the other machine. The other machine has no firewall on it.

Well, after reading through Michna's document, I'm ready to try some of his simpler
suggestions this morning. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

--
Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)
(121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet

"I'm sure we all agree that we ought to love one another and
I know there are people in the world that do not love their
fellow human beings and I hate people like that." -- Tom Lehrer

Web Page: <home.earthlink.net/~mtnviews>

 

[Leythos]

In my simplest case, which doesn't work either, I have this XP Pro SP2 machine and
another Win2000 SP6 machine. When I stepped up to SP2, the Win2000 machine
disappeared from My Network Places. What service have you disabled? If I specify in
the Security Center that I don't want firewall protection from MS, I still can't see
the other machine. The other machine has no firewall on it.

I'm confused, I didn't think there was a SP6 for Windows 2000, are you
sure?

When I setup Windows 2000 Professional and Windows XP SP2 (firewall
disabled) and put them both in the same Workgroup, with file/printer
sharing enabled on both, they see each other without any problem.

 

[W. Watson]

I'm confused, I didn't think there was a SP6 for Windows 2000, are you
sure?

When I setup Windows 2000 Professional and Windows XP SP2 (firewall
disabled) and put them both in the same Workgroup, with file/printer
sharing enabled on both, they see each other without any problem.

Shucks, my memory wasn't that good. SP 5 is probably right. The other computer is
100' away. Too lazy to look. Sorry 'bout that.

--
Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)
(121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet

"I'm sure we all agree that we ought to love one another and
I know there are people in the world that do not love their
fellow human beings and I hate people like that." -- Tom Lehrer

Web Page: <home.earthlink.net/~mtnviews>

 

[Malke]

I'm confused, I didn't think there was a SP6 for Windows 2000, are you
sure?

There is no SP6 for Win2k. There was just an announcement from MS that
there would be no SP5 - just a rollup.

When I setup Windows 2000 Professional and Windows XP SP2 (firewall
disabled) and put them both in the same Workgroup, with file/printer
sharing enabled on both, they see each other without any problem.

Yes, he's got something set up wrong or broken. I have two Win2k Pro
boxen on a network with three XP Pro SP2 boxen, two SuSE 9.1 machines,
and various other computers running Win9x on and off. Everything works
and setting up Win2k to share with XP Pro SP2 took all of a minute (I
did this yesterday, so I'm sure).

He didn't say what version of NAV he's using, but other posters have
mentioned that the latest iteration has a firewall in it. If true, this
would mean that he could have had 3 different firewalls running at one
time.

Malke

 

[W. Watson]

Leythos wrote:




There is no SP6 for Win2k. There was just an announcement from MS that
there would be no SP5 - just a rollup.


Yes, he's got something set up wrong or broken. I have two Win2k Pro
boxen on a network with three XP Pro SP2 boxen, two SuSE 9.1 machines,
and various other computers running Win9x on and off. Everything works
and setting up Win2k to share with XP Pro SP2 took all of a minute (I
did this yesterday, so I'm sure).

He didn't say what version of NAV he's using, but other posters have
mentioned that the latest iteration has a firewall in it. If true, this
would mean that he could have had 3 different firewalls running at one
time.

Malke

Hi, a minute! Some people have all the luck.

I took a couple of simple shots at this with Michna's doc.

netsh int ip reset ... log -- did nothing
netsh winsock reset ("normally no do any harm" --!) Well, it jiggled something loose.
On Network Places I could actually see my XP Pro shares. Didn't last long though. I
figured I probably nailed spybot in the process, so removed it. When I rebooted, I
was back to Network Places just not having a clue about anything. Emptiness.

My next shot will be creating a user on the Win 2000 machine. See Michna's doc-mid
way through it--General.

Norton AV 2003, Version 9.0. I let the subscription lapse about 2 weeks ago. Hmmm,
maybe disabling it might be worth a shot (not removing it).

Took out McAfee days ago. Took out spybot today. I'm pretty sure I used Decom (I
think it's name). Maybe that needs examination? I don't think any machine can ping
any other machine. I can't even ping the xp from the xp.

I don't see any other programs on my system that try to reach out and touch someone.
OK, I use Moz 1.6 for mail/browser, and IE/OE are just on my system for looks.

--
Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)
(121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet

"I'm sure we all agree that we ought to love one another and
I know there are people in the world that do not love their
fellow human beings and I hate people like that." -- Tom Lehrer

Web Page: <home.earthlink.net/~mtnviews>

 

[W. Watson]

Hi, a minute! Some people have all the luck.

I took a couple of simple shots at this with Michna's doc.

netsh int ip reset ... log -- did nothing
netsh winsock reset ("normally no do any harm" --!) Well, it jiggled
something loose. On Network Places I could actually see my XP Pro
shares. Didn't last long though. I figured I probably nailed spybot in
the process, so removed it. When I rebooted, I was back to Network
Places just not having a clue about anything. Emptiness.

My next shot will be creating a user on the Win 2000 machine. See
Michna's doc-mid way through it--General.

Norton AV 2003, Version 9.0. I let the subscription lapse about 2 weeks
ago. Hmmm, maybe disabling it might be worth a shot (not removing it).

Took out McAfee days ago. Took out spybot today. I'm pretty sure I used
Decom (I think it's name). Maybe that needs examination? I don't think
any machine can ping any other machine. I can't even ping the xp from
the xp.

I don't see any other programs on my system that try to reach out and
touch someone. OK, I use Moz 1.6 for mail/browser, and IE/OE are just on
my system for looks.

Well, emptiness wasn't quite right. I get a message that says my Galaxy workgroup is
unaccessible, and I need to contact the admin. Unfortunately, he (me) doesn't know a
thing about it. Disabling NAV didn't change a thing.

--
Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)
(121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet

"I'm sure we all agree that we ought to love one another and
I know there are people in the world that do not love their
fellow human beings and I hate people like that." -- Tom Lehrer

Web Page: <home.earthlink.net/~mtnviews>

 

[Carey Holzman]

You need to work on this pinging issue before moving forward.

Generally speaking, if you cannot ping it's because you have a firewall
installed. It can also happen if you don't have any client or protocol
installed, or if you NIC, network cable or port on the hub/switch/router is
bad.

Boot into safe mode with network support and see if you can ping.

If so, then you definitely have software installed causing this issue.

Carey

 

[W. Watson]

Good point about the firewall, but when I had McAfee installed, it allowed me
unfettered access to my local network while keeping out intruders from the web. Since
I was forced to remve Mc firewall, I've depended on MS firewall, and it's a different
animal. So sometimes I forget to turn it off. However, I just turned off, and pinged
away. It doesn't recognize this machine or the only other machine on the network.

I'm going to try the Safe mode suggestion in a moment, and pull the ethernet cable
on this computer.

..... time goes by ...

Well, in safe mode, the ping to 192.168.0.3 (XP--this machine), and then to
192.168.0.1 (the W2000 machine) produced: Unable to contact IP driver, error #2.

Let's try that again. Once again I forgot to turn off the firewall.


..... time goes by (also a song title) ...

Well, there was no need to do that. Safe mode takes care of safe mode.

I just tried pinging this computer with the ethernet cable pulled. Timed out. So let
me turn off the firewall for a minute. Same result with pinging.

You need to work on this pinging issue before moving forward.

Generally speaking, if you cannot ping it's because you have a firewall
installed. It can also happen if you don't have any client or protocol
installed, or if you NIC, network cable or port on the hub/switch/router is
bad.

Boot into safe mode with network support and see if you can ping.

If so, then you definitely have software installed causing this issue.

Carey

--
Wayne T. Watson (Watson Adventures, Prop., Nevada City, CA)
(121.015 Deg. W, 39.262 Deg. N) GMT-8 hr std. time)
Obz Site: 39° 15' 7" N, 121° 2' 32" W, 2700 feet

"I'm sure we all agree that we ought to love one another and
I know there are people in the world that do not love their
fellow human beings and I hate people like that." -- Tom Lehrer

Web Page: <home.earthlink.net/~mtnviews>