heatwave

I work on a small network of five Windows computers connected in a star topology. We have recently upgraded one of them to WinXP Pro. That computer (w4) can now see all other computers in My Network Places except for the one called W3. W3 and W4 can even ping back and forth
I think that this means that it is a Windows problem rather than cabling. What can I do about this?

vega55

The security and access privileges must be set correctly on these two systems.
Also the sharing access settings must be set to allow the others access..

XP pro is designed to be used in a secure network
hence the additional security settings

heatwave

Ok. I expected that it would be something like that. I am pretty new to Win XP (I have been in the dark ages for some time).
Both computers only have 1 admin account. Where are there more security and access settings?

iceman99

What is the other OS?

heatwave

On the network there are two XP Home, two XP Pro and one 98. The XP Pro are W4 and W3. In My Network Places W4 can see every other computer but W3 but W3 can see W4. I can ping W3 from W4 and W4 from W3.
Both W3 and W4 have only one account and are both set to administrator.

vega55

It cannot by default do what your saying. There is more going on. If the XP Home boxes can communicate with the XP Pro boxes then either the guest account is enabled on the XP Pro boxes and given permissions to access the shares or the XP Pro boxes are using Simple File Sharing. Since you don't mention that there is any problems with the XP Home -> Pro or XP Pro ->Home networking, the problem is not likely a permissions issue because using Simple File Sharing, permissions are not used for establishing credentials across the network. Hence, making the users one each machine would make no difference.

I would try accessing the W4 from Start-Run type \\192.168.1.25(or whatever the IP of W3)\c$
See if you can see the machine that way. Try pinging the computer name under System Properties then Full Computer Name. Then go back into My Network Places and check to see if it pops up.

Make sure that both Pro machines are using Simple File Sharing, and the Advanced TCP/IP settings/ WINS has the Default NetBios Setting checked. Verify the two machines have the same settings under TCP/IP settings.

iceman99

On W4, create a user account with the same name and password as you use to logon to W3.

heatwave

I’m sorry that I took so long to reply. If the extra user account on W4 to allows W3 to access it, how can W3 be accessing W4 with only one user account? W3 and W4 are both running XP Pro.

vega55

Well this is indeed a totally different situation. XP Home is not secure for networking. In order to succesfully network the machines you can either enable the guest account on the XP Pro box and share the network shares out to everyone or you could enable Simple File Sharing on the XP Pro boxes. To do this you simply go to any file on the computer click it then click on Tools, Folder Options, View, and scroll down to the bottom of the list. You will see the option for Simple File sharing. This basically disables the need for credentials over a network. You may also need to enable the Guest account on the XP Pro boxes. Right click My Computer, Manage, Local Users and Groups, Users right click Guest and enable it. After you do this reboot the machines, it is the easiest/fastest way to get the Nethood' to update.

heatwave

Things seem to be a bit different than they were when I started this thread. This network consists of W1 (XP Home), W2 (98 SE), W3 (XP Pro), W4 (XP Pro) and Newserver (XP Home).

Every computer can successfully ping any of the others.

But, in My Network Places W1, W2 ,W3 and W4 can only see W1 and W2 and Newserver. Newserver sees all but W2.

It seems to me that Windows XP Pro is the problem. If they were Windows XP Home this should have been fine.

One (but not both) of the XP Home installs won't see W2 (98 SE).