Vista Ultimate won't connect to my other computers

[Theryn]

I have a home network linked by a Linksys router. There are three Windows
2000 machines and one Vista Home Premium all using static IPs of 10.0.0.x
with hard wired cat 5 cabling. No DHCP, all the same workgroup. I just
bought a new Vista Ultimate machine and it can see the other machines, but
when I try to connect, only one of the Win2K machines gives a password login.
Another won't even ping. The Vista Home machine gives an error saying not
accessible, but it does ping. The administrator accounts on both Vista
machines is the same login. The Vista home machine can see and connect to
everything, including the new Vista Ultimate machine. I tried turning off
the Windows firewall on both Vista machines, but no good. Please help.

 

[Malke]

I have a home network linked by a Linksys router. There are three Windows
2000 machines and one Vista Home Premium all using static IPs of 10.0.0.x
with hard wired cat 5 cabling. No DHCP, all the same workgroup. I just
bought a new Vista Ultimate machine and it can see the other machines, but
when I try to connect, only one of the Win2K machines gives a password
login.
Another won't even ping. The Vista Home machine gives an error saying
not
accessible, but it does ping. The administrator accounts on both Vista
machines is the same login. The Vista home machine can see and connect to
everything, including the new Vista Ultimate machine. I tried turning off
the Windows firewall on both Vista machines, but no good. Please help.

Here are general network troubleshooting steps. Not everything may be
applicable to your situation, so just take the bits that are. It may look
daunting, but if you follow the steps at the links and suggestions below
systematically and calmly, you will have no difficulty in setting up your
sharing.

Excellent, thorough, yet easy to understand article about File/Printer
Sharing in Vista. Includes details about sharing printers as well as files
and folders:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb727037.aspx

Problems sharing files between computers on a network are generally caused
by 1) a misconfigured firewall or overlooked firewall (including a stateful
firewall in a VPN); or 2) inadvertently running two firewalls such as the
built-in Windows Firewall and a third-party firewall; and/or 3) not having
identical user accounts and passwords on all Workgroup machines; 4) trying
to create shares where the operating system does not permit it.

A. Configure firewalls on all machines to allow the Local Area Network (LAN)
traffic as trusted. If you aren't running a third-party firewall or have an
antivirus/security program with its own firewall component, then you're
fine. With third-party firewalls, I usually configure the LAN allowance
with an IP range. Ex. would be 192.168.1.0-192.168.1.254. Obviously you
would substitute your correct subnet. Refer to any third party security
program's Help or user forums for how to properly configure its firewall.
Do not run more than one firewall. DO NOT TURN OFF FIREWALLS; CONFIGURE
THEM CORRECTLY.

B. For ease of organization, put all computers in the same Workgroup. This
is done from the System applet in Control Panel, Computer Name tab.

C. Create matching user accounts and passwords on all machines. You do not
need to be logged into the same account on all machines and the passwords
assigned to each user account can be different; the accounts/passwords just
need to exist and match on all machines. DO NOT NEGLECT TO CREATE
PASSWORDS, EVEN IF ONLY SIMPLE ONES.

Malke

 

[Theryn]

Thanks for the response. I've already seen this response several places and
gone thru the steps. I found nothing that worked, but I'll go thru it again
this evening.

 

[Theryn]

I found the problem. Even tho I'd named my user account the same on both
machines (tlogin), in the task manager on the Vista Home machine the user was
called Owner, not the login name that displayed when you log in. I renamed
that one, created a new administrator account with the preferred name
(tlogin) and suddenly my new Ultimate machine would let me connect.
Hopefully this will help others out there.

 

[Malke]

I found the problem. Even tho I'd named my user account the same on both
machines (tlogin), in the task manager on the Vista Home machine the user
was
called Owner, not the login name that displayed when you log in. I
renamed that one, created a new administrator account with the preferred
name (tlogin) and suddenly my new Ultimate machine would let me connect.
Hopefully this will help others out there.

You did a great job of troubleshooting. What you experienced is actually a
very common issue and why it's important to look at the actual user account
names in C:\Users (Vista) and C:\Documents and Settings (XP) and not the
Display names in Control Panel>User Accounts.

Thanks for taking the time to post your solution. It will definitely help
others.

Malke