[wolfgrrl]

M'Kay.........

Just got a new laptop running Vista. I have a WIRED home network on which two PC's are connected: one with XP and one with Vista. These two can see each other perfectly well.

I've added in a wireless router that runs off a port on my wired router as an access point: the wireless router is not connect to any PC, only to the wired router.

Laptop cannot access home network: it can see the Vista desktop but not the XP desktop. It cannot access the Vista desktop: I get an error that the network path cannot be found. Vista desktop can see laptop & XP desktop, but again I get an error that the network path cannot be found when trying to access the laptop. XP desktop only sees Vista desktop.

Help! I'd like them all to see one another and be able to share files. I'm new at wireless networking, so I'm not really sure what to do to get all of them to play nice. I have a cable internet connection.

Thanks for your help!

 

[johnwill]

This is most likely a firewall issue.

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.

Start, Run, CMD to open a command prompt for the following commands.

PING each remote computer by IP address, and if successful, PING by name. Open a command prompt as described above and type.

PING <ip address>
or
PING <computer name>

Where:
<ip address> - is the x.x.x.x IP address
<computer name> - is the computer name

A failure to PING is almost always a firewall configuration issue. Any failure to PING needs to be corrected before you go any farther.

Note: You can obtain the IP address and computer name of a computer by opening a command prompt (DOS window) and typing IPCONFIG /ALL. This should work for any Windows version. The IPCONFIG /ALL display will provide a wealth of useful information for debugging your network connection.

Check your Services are Started on all PCs:

• Computer Browser
• DHCP Client
• DNS Client
• Network Connections
• Network Location Awareness
• Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
• Server
• TCP/IP Netbios helper
• Workstation

Note: You can check the services in Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services.

All of these services should be started, and their startup type should be automatic.

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.

 

[wolfgrrl]

Laptop can ping XP desktop: Laptop cannot ping Vista desktop, but can see Vista in network screen. All services are running as described on all PC's. Firewalls have all been disabled and shut off using task manager: using FortKnox firewall.

Vista desktop can ping laptop and XP desktop.
XP desktop can ping laptop but cannot ping Vista desktop (but can see it in network screen and access files and printers).

LLTD has been installed on XP desktop: all file sharing services are "On" in Vista systems.

 

[johnwill]

If you can't ping the Vista machine, there's still a firewall in play.