XP and W2K Workgroup. Cannot Share Resources

Butch

Hi,

This is driving me nuts. I desperately need somebody to help me with any good idea on what's going on.

Scenario
PC1 is XP/Pro. PC2 is W2K. Both connected to a D-Link D504 DSL Router (4x10/100 ports + ADSL). IP addresses provided by the DHCP server in the router. The router is running NAT.

Problem: Can't properly see shared resources: Printers or folders.

Both PC1 and PC2 can ping each other.
Both PC1 and PC2 can access the Internet thru the router
Both have the same workgroup name
Both have NetBios over TCP/IP checked
PC1 (running XP) has IPF disabled.
Both have the proper Services running (Server, Computer Browser).
Both have File and Printing Sharing for Microsoft Networks" enabled in the Local Area Network connection.
Both have Guest user enabled.
Both have the latest Service Packs installed.
Both have at least 1 shared folder enabled.

The router has no firewall enabled.
The router filtering only the following L2 traffic (RARP, IP Broadcast, 802.1Q). All the rest passes.


Problem Statement:
From PC1 (running XP) go to Microsoft Network. Can see both PC1 and PC2. Click on PC2 gives message "\\PC2 is not accesible. you might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator..."
From PC2 (running W2K) try the same, see the workgroup name, click on it and get "WORKGROUP is not accesible. The list of servers for this workgroup is not currently accesible".

Help!
Butch

Butch

Well... Adding Netbeui does the trick. Not a clean one, but it solves the issue temporarely.

Still would be interested in hearing an alternative solution without Netbeui.

Thanks,
Butch

Renton

Hmm thats wierd...

things to try

Try running nbtstat to get the remote machine name table..

C:\>nbtstat -a PC1

Try not using DHCP, and set the ip's manually, making sure that the subnet masks are the same.

Try mabye reinstalling TCP/IP on the machines..

Have you got Norton Internet Security or Zonealarm or Norton Personal Firewall. or any of those bogey bits of software ?

Try accessing the pc's directly by IP rather than by name, i.e. Start -> Run -> \\192.168.0.5 instead of \\PC1

Try getting the latest drivers for your NIC..

Have the computers been networked before ? or are they freshly installed OS's ?

brains a bit fragile from last night. mabye ill think of more stuff later

den

crowbar

yeah, that's really quite strange.

are your login names and passwords the same on both machines? if not then create both logins on each machine, each user using the same password on both machines ... though i don't know why netbeui would allow you to get around the problem if this is it.

if you don't want to do that then you can try mapping the share directly from one machine, without browsing for it first, and using the login and password that's used on the other machine.

maybe it's something to do with 'null sessions'. afaik it's not quite tied in with the guest account permissions. have a look in control panel -> administrative tools -> local security policy (and it's xp equivalent), expand local policies -> security options, and check out the 'additional restrictions for anonymous connections' setting.

Winters

I am running the same kind of network as you,

This PC is XP Pro, the other is Windows2000 Pro. I have them connected through the D-Link DES-1008D Switch. The way i have them working is by manually giving each PC and IP address, 192.168.0.1 and 192.168.0.2. For some reason it works for me. I also do have netbeui installed [i think] but you have to search the XP CD to find it.

Also make sure you have the sharing setup. For some reason I had to reshare some of my folders as the default share didnt work. Also, on another note, for some reason only this PC [XP Pro] can see files on the other pc. Other one cant even see the network.

Renton

Try running the Network Setup Wizard on the XP machine, the sharing may be disabled by default..