Can't connect to other PC's on my networking using: My Computer - Tools - Map Network Drive
Wednesday, May 21st, 2008 - 8:03pm
Hi all,
Anyone have some thoughts regarding this problem?:
When I Browse for Folder, I can see: My Network Places - Entire Network - Microsoft Windows Network - Home
"Home" is the local workgroup that both the Microsoft XP Professional PC's are a part of. Each PC is up-to-date with Service Pack 3. Both have access to the internet.
Interestingly, both can be pinged by their legitimate IP address (on the network), but I CAN'T ping them by their PC name (ie- "Gamingrig" and "Mediapc", respectively).
Both have had Windows XP reinstalled on their respective systems, from scratch. There are no Firewall or Antivirus programs running currently. No plans for the Firewall, but AV after I get things working.
Sorry for the brevity, time demands it of me.
check for a group name conflict. iircm home!=Home
"Also, I have four legs and am covered in wool. Baa!" *Legion* reveals his inner furry.
Good thought, but I just changed all the workgroup names to "Ourhome" and have had no luck. Also, I added my wife's PC into the mix, ensured that she's in "Ourhome" and also can't find any other PC's listed when I try to map to a network drive.
As an added note, the MediaPC is the only one that doesn't show nothing under the "OurHome" group. It at least shows *itself* listed (along with SharedDocs, Printers & Faxes, and Scheduled Tasks). Otherwise, the other two PC's don't feature a thing when I try to map.
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Some firewalls block the windows file sharing protocol (including the XP firewall I believe). Check your settings and see if you have to enable it.
Thanks for that thought - but I never use XP firewall since my router has its own firewall. I have confirmed that none of the PC's have the firewall active.
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Which router do you have and are you letting the router assign IPs to the PCs, or are you hand setting that?
"Also, I have four legs and am covered in wool. Baa!" *Legion* reveals his inner furry.
I've had luck in Linux/Windows sharing by typing in the ip directly as the url. Example: //192.168.0.1/ rather than //MSHOME/
Maybe worth a try.
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To moronic, time-wasting
dumb activities - nsmike
Windows standard networking (ie, Samba-ish, as opposed to Active Directory-ish) is this really weird assemblage of three separate services. Any one can fail, without necessarily affecting the function of the others.
First, you have the computer browser service. That's what gives you a list of PCs when you click a network. The browse service is simply that; a list of names. That's ALL. The PCs on your network are supposed to have an 'election' for who is going to host that service. The most 'advanced' OS will normally win. Again, ALL this covers is the list of names; as PCs show up, they register with the browse service; as they disappear, eventually the browse service realizes they're gone and drops them from the list. Each network segment maintains its own local browse list.
Then, you have name resolution, WINS. This is _usually_ handled by the same PC that's handling the browse list, but that's not required. This machine, when queried for a network name, will return an IP address. It's like DNS, but for Windows names. The interactions between the browse service and WINS can get fairly complex in a multi-segmented network. In the typical case, where everyone's on the same network wire, most of the complexity is avoided. You shouldn't have to worry about any of that, unless you're in a network that's partitioned into multiple pieces somehow.
Finally, you have the actual share service. The other services present the computer name to you, and then translate the name to an IP address when you double-click, but both these can be broken, and you can still connect. You do so with Start/Run, \\192.168.0.10\sharename, substituting the correct IP address and share of the other server. If that works, you can map the drive permanently by right clicking Network Neighborhood, choosing Map Drive, and using the same syntax. Note that I don't think it will prompt you for a password when you map if you've already connected, so if you intend to do this permanently... log out, log back in, and THEN map the drive. That will prompt you for username/password, and will give you a Remember This checkbox if you're on XP Pro. On Home, it will not remember login credentials across reboots. You will have to type it in each and every time.
Try that, and if it works, you could probably just ignore the browse and WINS services. If you really want them working, then verify that all the machines in question are actually running the Server service, and that service is connected to the network card you're using. (it has a checkbox in properties). Assuming you're behind a hardware firewall of some kind, disable all local firewalling (remember XP SP2+ has its own firewall installed, and it's on by default.) Also be sure that your machines are all in the same network address range, and plugged into the same switch. If you have any kind of a router between the PCs, they may not be able to see each other.
As a more abstract thing to check, make sure your netmask is correct. Assuming that your netmask is 255.255.255.0 (the most common case), make sure that the first three octets in both machines' ip addresses are the same. With that netmask, if they're both 192.168.0.X, then it will work... but if, say, one's in 192.168.0 and the other's in 192.168.1, they won't be able to see each other with that netmask.
Again: this all assumes you're on a private network space, behind a hardware firewall. If you're not, then you want to get a hardware firewall pronto. Directly connecting to the Internet, particularly if you're sharing files, is just asking to be hacked.
As Malor said, try IP instead of name and/or browsing.
Especially if that works, in the TCP/IP properties for the NIC, hit advanced, WINS tab, and check the NetBIOS setting. Frequently it needs to be set to "Enable", and it is set to Default, by, well, default. Microsoft messes with NetBIOS over TCP/IP all the time, since it was supposed to be gone with Windows 2000.
While I've pretty much never played with Home, Pro has the problem a lot too, especially if you're wireless. If you're wired, batch files with "net use" statements in the Startup folder take care of that fairly well.
*Legion* recognizing greatness wrote:
Don't forget to turn off simple file sharing.
Unfortunately, if I slash my wrist with my lightsaber it cauterizes instantly. - PurEvil on emo Star Wars plots.
Wow, lots of great stuff here - I should have revisited this thread before I needed to sleep for the night. Thanks to all of you for the guidance. This weekend, I will revisit these issues and make an attempt to get my home network running better. I'll report back with my results. GWJ'ers FTW.
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