Workgroup is not accessible

[TMG]

Hello.

I'm having a problem with my home network here and need
some help.

I have two machines, one laptop (win2k) and one desktop
(XP home).

On the laptop (win2k)..
- when I open My Network Places and click on "computers
near me" I can see both computers - the laptop (itself)
and the desktop. However, when I double-click the desktop,
I get the error message: "the network path cannot be
found."

On the desktop (XP home)..
- when I open My Network Places I see the SharedDocs
folder, but it is just a folder icon (not the
networked/shared folder icon). When I click on "view
workgroup computers" I get the error message: "Workgroup
is not accessible. You may not have permission to use this
network resource...."

- computers are connected via a linksys router and have a
192.168.x.x IP address
- both computers can access the internet
- both have TCP/IP enabled along with NetBIOS over TCP/IP
- XP home computer has file/printer sharing exception
turned on
- computer browser service is turned on

any ideas?!?! Help!

 

[Chuck]

Hello.

I'm having a problem with my home network here and need
some help.

I have two machines, one laptop (win2k) and one desktop
(XP home).

On the laptop (win2k)..
- when I open My Network Places and click on "computers
near me" I can see both computers - the laptop (itself)
and the desktop. However, when I double-click the desktop,
I get the error message: "the network path cannot be
found."

On the desktop (XP home)..
- when I open My Network Places I see the SharedDocs
folder, but it is just a folder icon (not the
networked/shared folder icon). When I click on "view
workgroup computers" I get the error message: "Workgroup
is not accessible. You may not have permission to use this
network resource...."

- computers are connected via a linksys router and have a
192.168.x.x IP address
- both computers can access the internet
- both have TCP/IP enabled along with NetBIOS over TCP/IP
- XP home computer has file/printer sharing exception
turned on
- computer browser service is turned on

any ideas?!?! Help!

This looks very much like a browser or firewall issue. Are you sure that WF on
the desktop is the ONLY firewall involved? Is the browser service running on
both computers?

Please provide ipconfig information for each computer.
Start - Run - "cmd". Type "ipconfig /all >c:\ipconfig.txt" into the command
window - Open c:\ipconfig.txt in Notepad, copy and paste into your next post.
Identify operating system (by name and version) with each ipconfig listing.

The Microsoft Browstat program will show us what browsers you have in your
domain / workgroup, at any time.
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=188305

You can download Browstat from either:
<http://www.dynawell.com/reskit/microsoft/win2000/browstat.zip>
<http://rescomp.stanford.edu/staff/manual/rcc/tools/browstat.zip>

Browstat is very small (40K), and needs no install. Just unzip the downloaded
file, copy browstat.exe to any folder in the Path, and run it from a command
window.

Please provide browstat information for each computer.
Start - Run - "cmd". Type "browstat status >c:\browstat.txt" into the command
window - Open c:\browstat.txt in Notepad, copy and paste into your next post.
Identify each computer by name and operating system.

For more information about the browser subsystem (very intricate), see:
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=188001
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=188305
<http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winntas/deploy/prodspecs/ntbrowse.mspx>

Cheers,
Chuck
Paranoia comes from experience - and is not necessarily a bad thing.