Laptop suddenly can't be found

[Ozzyfreakdude]

Hello
I've had 3 computers set up on an ethernet hub for filesharing for at least a few weeks now, and it's worked perfectly fine up until this morning, and I haven't even changed anything around.

I have a desktop with windows xp x64, and a desktop and laptop both with normal windows xp. turned them on this morning, and the two desktops will see and talk to each other, and they see that the laptop is there in the view network computers folder, but when I try to click on it, it says I don't have access. from the laptop, though, in the view network computers folder, all it sees is itself. In the view network connections folder, the Lan connection I'm talking about tells me that it's connected (but for some reason it won't let me look at the status for any connection so I can't see whether it's sending packets or not). I've tried rebooting, disabling firewalls, and clicking repair connection, and nothing has worked. any help is greatly appreciated.

[johnwill]

Turn off any firewalls for debugging. If the firewall is the problem, you'll have to configure it to allow access to "trusted zone" addresses. Note that some firewalls must be completely uninstalled to stop them from affecting your networking.

PING each computer by IP address, and if successful, PING by name. You can obtain the IP address of a computer by opening a command prompt (DOS window) and typing IPCONFIG. This should work for any Windows version. A failure here needs to be corrected before you go any farther.

Check your Services are Started on all PCs: Workstation, DHCP Client, DNS Client, Server, TCP/IP Netbios helper, Computer Browser.

All computers should be in the same workgroup for computer browsing to function properly. File & Print Sharing has to be enabled on any computer you wish to share files or printers from. You also need to actually share the resource in question from My Computer, right click on the drive/printer/folder, and select sharing.

If you encounter difficulties accessing computers that are visible in Network Neighborhood, make sure the computer being accessed has an account with the same name/password as the system connecting to it uses to login.

While the default NetBIOS setting is correct for normal network configurations, it's possible for it to be altered, and it costs nothing to make sure it's correct. NETBIOS over TCP/IP must be enabled for normal network browsing.