home network

I'm going nutz! I've had a home network for almost 4 years now, but the past several months have been hell! I cannot seem to get new computers on the network. They work fine on the net. I can ping ip #'s from all the machines, but to share files and "a" printer seem to be impossible. I first notice the problem when I broughtr my office laptop home and tried to share music. At first it worked fine w/o a hitch the 2nd time I brought it home I couldn't connect. I didn't reallycare though at that point I own the machine abnd the business. I'm the only IT person there. Bringing my laptop to the network was not critical. However, now I'm trying to set up my daughter with a new machine and she can surf but not connect to our network printer--attached to my wifes machine-- nor can she see the music files on my machine. I keep getting a message that indicates she needs to see the network administrator. She doesn't have permissions! I've rerun the network setup wizard a dozen times on allthree machines w/o any luck. My wife and I can see her computer but when we click on it we don't have permission to go there and she doesn't have permission to even see our computers! I'm using a Linksys wired router with a 4 port switch that is probably about a year and a half old. It seems to me that this is an sp2 or windows firewall problem, but I hesitate to turn off the firewall on all computers! We all run XP sp2 My daughter has norton internet security, while wife and I just have the norton antivirus. Does anyone have any ideas. I've run the XP network trouble shooter also!

I ALSO GET A STRANGE MESSAGE OCC ON MY COMPUTER that 2 master browsers are on the network and of course it's my daughters computer.

Sorry to hear that, it sounds frustrating.

A couple questions:
1. Is file and print sharing enabled on all machines?
2. Is your daughters drive set up to be shared?

It's probably an SP2 issue. Check out here and see if this helps at all:
http://support.microsoft.com/default...5BLN%5D;835935

Let us know how you it turns out. Cheers.

A few things to check.


Are all the pc's members of the same workgroup?

Do all the pc's have the same user accounts in user manager? eg. If PC1 that logs in as User1 wants to connect to PC2 that logs in as User2 then User1 must have an identical account on PC2 and vice versa for all the pc's on your network.

What this effectively means is that if you log in as different users on different pc's you must ensure that all pc's have the same list of user accounts and passwords created to allow sharing.

Another important thing to note is that XP doesn't like user accounts without passwords and sharing of resources will probably not work if you use blank passwords.

After that it is a case of sharing the folders on each pc as you desire. Make sure when you share the folder you then click the permissions button in the sharing tab and allow the "Everyone" group full access. You can then go to the security tab and choose which users have access and set different levels of access.

As you are using a router to share the internet connection running the XP firewall on each pc is not really required as they are already behind the router hardware firewall.

Hope this is clear and helpful. Post back if any questions.

emr

Well, you need to first make sure that you have an exception in the SP2 firewall for file and print sharing on all computers. Assuming that you have them all on the same workgroup, they shoud be able to see each other as well as access the basic file share folder set by default in WinXP. To add additional folders, go to file explorer and right click the file or drive you want to share across your network and choose Sharing and Security from the drop down and apply the settings you want. You will also need to do the same thing for the printer/s you want to share over your network. You will need to do the same on each machine on the network. On your daughters computer, temporarily disable Norton Internet Security and do as you have with the other computers, see if you can access the shares from each machine. Once everything is working OK. Re-enable Norton. Chances are you will need to fine tune the Norton to get all the Local Area Network stuff to work right. Check the documentation on the Norton to guide you on the fine tuning of that program.
Good Luck.

Thanks everyone who responded I'll be back after work to work on this. We are all in the "First" workgroup. However not all oif us have passwords to log on and I'll have to see about user accts. file and printsharing is turned on with the network setup wizard but only works between ma and pa.

Thakyou!!!! :thumbs: By turning off the windows firewall on all machine and by disabling norton internet security I've connected everybody. My daughter's machine requires a name and password??? but I figured that out too. Originally this machine was set up for my brother-inlaw and by typing his name in the user name and my daughters password we can access everything. Seems strange that it's like that! Hey but it works!!! :drink: :thumbs2:

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Originally Posted by Richard1

Sorry to hear that, it sounds frustrating.

A couple questions:
1. Is file and print sharing enabled on all machines?
2. Is your daughters drive set up to be shared?

It's probably an SP2 issue. Check out here and see if this helps at all:
http://support.microsoft.com/default...5BLN%5D;835935

Let us know how you it turns out. Cheers.

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you were bob on with you reply ,,,,,yet agsain