Sime computers on home LAN are not accessible using XP Pro (SP2)

[Bob S]

I have a home LAN with a router running on Win XP with 4 computers on it.
The 3 desktops are named Office, Steph, and Rob. The notebook is named
"Bob's notebook". The network has worked just fine in the past, but is
giving errors at the moment. Here are the facts.

1. All 4 computers can access the internet.
2. All 4 show the others when I click "View workgroup computers"
3. When I double-click on the computers names in "View workgroup Computers"
I varied results, as follows.
4. From Rob, I can access all 3 other computers.
5. From Steph, I can access Rob, and Bob's notebook, but not Office.
6. From Bob's Notebook, I can access Rob and Steph, but not Office.
7. From Office, I can access Rob, but not Steph or Bob's notebook.
8. Windows Firewall is off on all of the computers.
9. All of the error messages are the same except that the name of the
inaccessible computer is different. The error messages look like this.

//Office is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this
network resource. Contact the administrator to find out if you have access
permissions. Network path is not found.

Can anyone help me on this?
Thank you in advance.
Bob

 

[Guest]

I assume all have the same workgroup name?

I assume all firewalls are allowing access to computers with ip addresses
between 192.168.1.1 & 192.168.1.255? (Disregard if only using Windows
Firewall)

Sometimes it takes a few hours before the computers like each other.

Also, are all the computers allowing file sharing, and are their
drives/folders that are being shared?

Usually its the workgroup, make sure all computers are on the same workgroup.

 

[Bob S]

Thanks for responding Bobby.

Yes, all use the same workgroup name.
Since I have a router, I am not using any software firewall, and even
Windows firewall is off now.
All computers are allowing file sharing and they all at least have shared
folders "shared".

When I setup the network, I just went to "My network places" and then
clicked "Set up a home or small office network" on each of the computers,
rather than using the XP CD or a floppy "network setup disk". Could that be
part of the problem? If it is, I do not have a floppy drive on 2 of the
computers. Is there a way to create a "network setup disk" on a CDR?

Thanks for your help.
Bob

 

[Guest]

Networking is actually magic - white magic when it works, and black magic
when it doesn't! )

There's many different reasons for this - here's some of the things to check:
1) Check that there's no restrictions in any of the router settings
2) Check that there's no problem/restriction with the firewall settings on
your firewalls
3) Check to ensure that all of your computers are configured to use simple
file sharing (it's easier to troubleshoot than other methods)
4) Check to ensure that there is at least one account that is the same on
each computer (an admin account with the same name and password on each).
5) Ensure that all the shared items are shared out to all the users who
might have need to access them.
6) Here's some links that I dragged up for "Access Denied" error messages
that might be of help:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=811151
http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/xp_filesharing/index.htm
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q304040&ID=KB;EN-US;q304040
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;281248
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=308418
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308421

Good luck with this - it can be very frustrating (and, frankly, I've given
up on it with my home network).

- John

 

[Bob S]

John,

These suggestions and links are most helpful. I am going to save this
message for future problems as well.

Here was the problem in this case (related to your suggestion in #2). I
have installed Zone Alarm on my desktop. But I had decided not to use it
most of the time so I had also gone into msconfig and unchecked the zlclient
so that it would not start up when windows started. But somehow enough of
zone alarm did start to cause my problems. I discovered it by using another
program which tried to do an update via the internet which said that I had a
firewall running. So, I loaded ZA and then terminated it and my other
program updated fine. Then I tried my LAN connections and they worked as
well.

Your suggestions were a help to me. And I plan to keep them for my next
inevitable bout with networking. Thank you very much.
Bob