work Laptop is not accessible by others PCs on home network

[Guest]

Hello!

My network consists a D-link router DI-524 (used as a gateway), Home PC and
work laptop.

The internet access is OK from all machines (wired and wireless).

The problem is:
From the Laptop I can access the shared files of my PC but from the PC I
can't

access files of the Laptop. (Same result if I access directly by the command

\\xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx providing the IP address of the Laptop)

Ping tests results: PC to Laptop => OK. Laptop to PC => timeout. Both PC and
Laptop to Router => OK.

When I perform a command from the shell: arp -a on the Laptop I do see that
the MAC address of my PC is learned properly!

So as I understand the main issue is to make laptop to accept Ping messages
sent
from my PC.

The same behavior apears on both when I connect the Laptop by wire and
wereless to the Router.

All machines are running WINDOWS-XP professional SP-2.

XP Firewalls are disabled on all machines.

The difference that the PC is configured as WORKGROUP when the Laptop is
configured to office domain. I tried to set the laptop also as WORKGROUP but
had the same results. As I understood later in order to share files on the
LAN it's not need to configure all machines to same workgroup.

How to make it work in order to share files and to play games using LAN?

Thanks in advance!

Sincerely,
Alex

 

[Harry Boyne]

Do you have any firewall?

If you go to run, try typing \\COMPUTER_NAME (type in the computer name)
instead of \\123.123.123.123 (The IP Address).

harry

 

[Chuck]

Hello!

My network consists a D-link router DI-524 (used as a gateway), Home PC and
work laptop.

The internet access is OK from all machines (wired and wireless).

The problem is:
From the Laptop I can access the shared files of my PC but from the PC I
can't

access files of the Laptop. (Same result if I access directly by the command

\\xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx providing the IP address of the Laptop)

Ping tests results: PC to Laptop => OK. Laptop to PC => timeout. Both PC and
Laptop to Router => OK.

When I perform a command from the shell: arp -a on the Laptop I do see that
the MAC address of my PC is learned properly!

So as I understand the main issue is to make laptop to accept Ping messages
sent
from my PC.

The same behavior apears on both when I connect the Laptop by wire and
wereless to the Router.

All machines are running WINDOWS-XP professional SP-2.

XP Firewalls are disabled on all machines.

The difference that the PC is configured as WORKGROUP when the Laptop is
configured to office domain. I tried to set the laptop also as WORKGROUP but
had the same results. As I understood later in order to share files on the
LAN it's not need to configure all machines to same workgroup.

How to make it work in order to share files and to play games using LAN?

Thanks in advance!

Sincerely,
Alex

Alex,

If you have a computer setup for a domain, there are a couple settings which
could be causing your problem.

Name resolution would be one. On a domain, computers may be setup to use a
local DNS server.
<http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/windows-xp-on-nt-domain.html>
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/windows-xp-on-nt-domain.html

The second would be SMB transport. SMBs are the life blood of Windows
Networking. In a domain using DNS for name resolution, direct hosting of SMBs
is frequently used. This won't work as well, if you're using NetBT on your LAN.
And the NetBT vs direct hosting setting is crucial to personal firewalls too.
<http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2006/07/advanced-windows-networking-using.html>
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2006/07/advanced-windows-networking-using.html

 

[Harry Boyne]

I think he said that he tried on workgroup mode.

 

[Chuck]

I think he said that he tried on workgroup mode.

Yes, he did. But putting the laptop into workgroup mode ("joining" it to a
workgroup) won't change either name resolution, nor SMB / NetBT settings.

A computer setup as a domain member, where DNS is used for name resolution, with
NetBT disabled and SMBs directly hosted, won't work on a workgroup using
broadcast name resolution, with SMBs over NetBT. Whether or not its "joined" to
the domain or workgroup.

And changing from domain to workgroup is a stupid thing to do. His LAN admin
will probably have some words about that the next time he takes the laptop back
to work.
<http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/have-laptop-will-travel.html#Authentication>
http://nitecruzr.blogspot.com/2005/05/have-laptop-will-travel.html#Authentication