XP Laptop to W2K Desktop through n/w-- no joy

[brian]

This type of problem appears to be common, but I can't
find the answer in other postings. I believe my problem
might lie in my McAfee firewall settings, but I don't
know how to proceed.

From my XP SP2 laptop, I can see in the search results
window the W2K (SP4) desktop (both are connected through
a Linksys router). The desktop (IP) appears in the NFS
Folder. If I try to open the desktop from the search
results window, I get an error that tells me the machine
is not accessible and that I might not have permission to
use the network resource.

I can also ping the machine without any trouble.

The XP firewall is turned off in favor of using the
McAfee one.

Thanks in advance for all suggestions and help.

-Brian

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

This type of problem appears to be common, but I can't
find the answer in other postings. I believe my problem
might lie in my McAfee firewall settings, but I don't
know how to proceed.

From my XP SP2 laptop, I can see in the search results
window the W2K (SP4) desktop (both are connected through
a Linksys router). The desktop (IP) appears in the NFS
Folder. If I try to open the desktop from the search
results window, I get an error that tells me the machine
is not accessible and that I might not have permission to
use the network resource.

I can also ping the machine without any trouble.

The XP firewall is turned off in favor of using the
McAfee one.

Brian,

please determine the cause with
http://www.michna.com/kb/wxnet.htm.

Hans-Georg

 

[Chuck]

This type of problem appears to be common, but I can't
find the answer in other postings. I believe my problem
might lie in my McAfee firewall settings, but I don't
know how to proceed.

From my XP SP2 laptop, I can see in the search results
window the W2K (SP4) desktop (both are connected through
a Linksys router). The desktop (IP) appears in the NFS
Folder. If I try to open the desktop from the search
results window, I get an error that tells me the machine
is not accessible and that I might not have permission to
use the network resource.

I can also ping the machine without any trouble.

The XP firewall is turned off in favor of using the
McAfee one.

Thanks in advance for all suggestions and help.

-Brian

Brian,

If your problem is caused by McAfee firewall, you might get help at
comp.security.firewalls, where the experts there can tell you everything you
need to know about firewall settings. Of course, some might tell you to RTFM.

McAfee Personal Firewall uses a Trusted IP list. You may have a selection "Make
all computers on your LAN trusted". By using either the list, or the selection,
you should be able to remove MPF from your problem list.

Win2K uses Advanced File Sharing, which requires either the Guest account to be
enabled, or an identical account, with matching password, to be in use on the
WinXP computer, and enabled on the Win2K computer.

More about file sharing, between all different versions of Windows:
<http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...db-aef8-4bef-925e-7ac9be791028&DisplayLang=en>

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

 

[brian]

Well, I've stumbled upon a DHCP-related behavior in the
Linksys router that might shed some insight here. Out of
curiousity, I logged into the W2K box using another
account that I haven't used in a year. I don't know if
that made a difference, but the IP address leased to it
from the router was different than the one I had been
using previously. I also note that the router is set to
lease each IP address for one day. I suspect that who
logs in makes no difference, but not using the machine
for over 24 hours as I did caused the new IP address to
be leased from the router.

In any case, having the new IP address enabled me to
connect from the XP box to the W2K box with no trouble.
Now I have a different question to ask related to this
behavior: if I can't get the machine to connect, how can
I manually expire my current address and grab a new one.

So far I've only been able to figure out the 'expire'
part (i.e. ipconfig /release which of course doesn't
expire it), but I can't find anything in the W2K ipconfig
documentation that enables me to force the W2K box to
grab a new address from the router.

You may be wondering why I don't manually assign IPs to
each box I'm using. Well, I have to use DHCP on my
router in order for my wife to use her laptop's existing
settings to connect to her work from home. Since she
uses DHCP at work, she doesn't want to have to manually
set TCP/IP info at home each time she wants to connect
from here.

I'm completely befuddled as to this current situation and
appreciate any insights any of you have about it.

Thanks again,
Brian

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

Well, I've stumbled upon a DHCP-related behavior in the
Linksys router that might shed some insight here. Out of
curiousity, I logged into the W2K box using another
account that I haven't used in a year. I don't know if
that made a difference, but the IP address leased to it
from the router was different than the one I had been
using previously. I also note that the router is set to
lease each IP address for one day. I suspect that who
logs in makes no difference, but not using the machine
for over 24 hours as I did caused the new IP address to
be leased from the router.

In any case, having the new IP address enabled me to
connect from the XP box to the W2K box with no trouble.
Now I have a different question to ask related to this
behavior: if I can't get the machine to connect, how can
I manually expire my current address and grab a new one.

I'm completely befuddled as to this current situation and
appreciate any insights any of you have about it.

Brian,

why don't you simply use http://www.michna.com/kb/wxnet.htm and
solve your problem straightforwardly, rather than trying odd
workarounds?

Hans-Georg