Xp Pro-Xp home network problems.

Hello,

I'm having a problem with a network I'm trying to get working. The details are as follows.

PC connected to router by ethernet, has ip address of 192.168.1.1 XP pro with simple file sharing.

Laptop connected to router via wireless has a ip of 192.168.1.2 Xp home.

DHCP is on in the router.

The laptop has internet connection via the wireless no problems. The Desktop can see the laptop in the workgroup but cannot connect to it. The laptop cannot connect to the workgroup at all and gives an error message that the workgroup is not accessible.

I cannot ping either machine and all firewalls are off.
Any suggestions??

Doy you have a folder shared? Have you tried mapping it directly?

What IP address is your router set to? - Can you ping the router from either machine?

Have you tried giving the one computer a different IP?
Normally 192.168.1.1 is the default gateway address (the router)

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Originally Posted by futuretech

Have you tried giving the one computer a different IP?
Normally 192.168.1.1 is the default gateway address (the router)

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agreed - that's why i asked what ip he had the router on - would be best just to let the router hand out IP's to the pc's

Yes I ave many folders shared on both pc's.
DHCP is turned on in the router so both the Laptop and the Desktop have obtained their IP address from the router.

I have to check but I think the routers address was 192.168.1.254

Haven't tried mapping directly and havent pinged the router but will give that a go and post my results.

Okay the routers Ip address was 192.168.1.254 and we were able to ping the router no problems. I havent tried mapping a network drive yet as Im too busy to get there today (hAd the owner do the above over the phone). Any suggestions from here??

I would suggest setting the router's IP to 192.168.1.1 since you are using DHCP. As it stands now the only address the router can assign is 192.168.1.255. On the connection between the PC's, amake sure you have the same workgroup assignment, (makes life easier) and once the router has been changed you will find this might work for your connection.

Please try mapping the share and tell us what happens. The browser in windows is very flaky from my experience, and the only way to be sure you can't connect is to try. Just because you can't browse dosen't mean you cant connect.....

Ok I have the same workgroup name on both pcs which is WORKGROUP.
So if I change the routers IP adress to 192.168.1.1 do I leave dhcp on and let it assign Ip addresses to the other two machines? Im not sure what the difference is if the router has an IP address of 192.168.1.254 or 192.168.1.1. Is this because the router will only assign an IP address higher than its own address?? eg. 192.168.1.255

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ahcoraj

Please try mapping the share and tell us what happens. The browser in windows is very flaky from my experience, and the only way to be sure you can't connect is to try. Just because you can't browse dosen't mean you cant connect.....

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OK but wouldnt the fact that I cant ping be a good indication that I have a connection problem?

First off, the post by zonie is confusing, you can have the router on 1.254 and have the dhcp range giving out lower addesses (look inside your gui and see). (i think the siemens and trendware routers do this by default, as well as zoom and other DSL modems.) What make/model is your router?

Second, not necessarily, ive seen firewalling software reject pings even though it's 'turned off' ( heck i once removed zone alarm and still had it block traffic, and had to use winsockXPfix to repair it) as long as you can get to the router gui on each machine, you should be able to get to each other....Heck the router could be set up to block icmp traffic (rare i admit but possible) In re reading your post, i don't see where you say wether both get to the web or the router gui not. could you post the ip address, subnet mask and default gateway of each as well..... Thanks G

I've also seen share permissions thwart the browser, you may want to create user accounts with the same name and pw on each machine and log on as them and see if it helps. If i understand this right though, DHCP is enabled and you're getting addresses from the router therefore there isn't a TCP/IP connection problem....

Ahcoraj,

The laptop gets to the web via wireless from the router so I know that works. The wireless connection is excellent. The main machine gets web access as well from the router but via lan cable. I am able to access the routers gui via the desktop but haven't tried from the laptop as I assume I would first need to plug a lan cable in instead of via wireless. One thing I did notice though is when I did try plugging a lan cable into the laptop (to see if we could get network access that way) it said a cable was unplugged in the network connection settings. I didnt go any further with that as I thought it was another problem to deal with, although could it have meant the cable was damaged?

Laptops Ip is 192.168.1.2 subnet is 255.255.255.0 Default gateway and DHCP Server is 192.168.1.254

Desktop is Ip 192.168.1.1 subnet is 255.255.255.0 Default gateway and DHCP Server is 192.168.1.254
I cant see anything wrong with these settings.

The PC can see the laptop in the WORKGROUP but cannot connect to it. The laptop can't see anything in the WORLGROUP and gives me an error message that the workgroup is not accessible.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ahcoraj

I've also seen share permissions thwart the browser, you may want to create user accounts with the same name and pw on each machine and log on as them and see if it helps. If i understand this right though, DHCP is enabled and you're getting addresses from the router therefore there isn't a TCP/IP connection problem....

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Both machines are logged into with the same username and password. Yes DHCP is working fine and I do get ip address's from the router.

xp home unfortuantely does not make it as easy to network as pro.To access security settings you have to restart in safe mode on home.
Start in safe mode on the home machine and create the share with permissions adding the user from the other machine (i usually find it easier to have a user created on both machines for the other machine with a unique user name and password [which the password can be the same as the other user])restart in normal mode. Then browse to the other machine using search for computer and input IP address for search criteria. When it finds it double click on and when requested for the user name and password input the one you created. This normally allows network sharing.

You should be able to log in to the router GUI from the wireless, try it....

Okay well I finally managed to get this problem fixed, but did three things so not sure which one did the job. First of all I changed the workgroup names on both Pc's to MSHOME. (I know the name doesnt matter but I just made sure they were both the same.)

I also ran a winsock fix on the laptop as that was the one that seemed to have all the problems as whenever I tried to access the workgroup it would lock up and I would get no response.

Finally I turned off simple file sharing on the desktop, although I was reluctant to do this as the laptop has XP Home. I rebooted both at the same time and the network worked once again. So who knows what fixed it, but my guess is the winsock fix (although I always had internet access on the laptop.) or turning off simple file sharing, but isnt that what xp home has to use anyway??