NetBEUI printing: "[MyNetworkName]' is not accessible." 1

[RNFolsom]

I am continuing to run Windows 2000 Sp4, and am using a NetBEUI workgroup "peer-to-peer" network (between two Win2k Sp4 computers, my wife's and mine).

I have two apparently related problems, described fully in detail in the IBM: NetBEUI Forum, at

http://www.tek-tips.com/threadminder.cfm?pid=578,

with the same thread name that I am using here. I used that forum because it came up when I searched for a NetBEUI forum, and the preceding messages in that forum were (tangentially) relevant.

My brief introductions to each of those problems are:

"1) A longstanding issue: If I open the Desktop Network Icon and select Entire Network, I get Microsoft Windows Network. Clicking on that gets my workgroup (peer-to-peer) network's correct name. But clicking on that generates an error message: 'MyNetworkName is not accessible. The network name cannot be found. (Of course, 'MyNetworkName' is not my network's real name, which I never post publicly.)"

"2) A New Issue. Last May I acquired an HP Officejet Pro 8000 A809a wired printer (my 1991 Deskjet 1200C finally died), connected to my computer using USB. (I couldn't get the intended Network connection to work.) But I am unable to share this printer with my wife's computer."

Fully detailed descriptions of these problems, and related background, are in the IBM: NetBEUI Forum.

But the last post in that forum, until mine, was in 2008, and the last post that got replies was in 2005.

So if anyone reading this has the time, I would very much appreciate any comments, suggestions, help, or solutions.

Since my problems are fully described with relevant background, in my thread578-1630500 in the IBM: NetBEUI Forum, probably that is the best place to respond. But I will be grateful for any assistance, regardless of location.

Thank you.

Roger Folsom

 

[flyboytim]

As you have discovered in the IBM forum, NETBEUI is not a popular networking protocol nowadays. TCP/IP is almost universal, mainly because it is the required protocol for the internet, and has many advantages over NETBEUI. NETBEUI is a 'broadcast' protocol, whereas TCP/IP is 'routed', and is thus capable of greater security.

I would therefore consider abandoning NETBEUI in favour of TCP/IP. Not only for security, but for speed, reliability and optimization of memory use.

I don't know how your two laptops obtain their internet connection, but it is likely to be via some form of router, which is in turn connected to some form of modem and then out to the internet service provider (ISP). You mention a LINKSYS device, but I am not clear if that applies to your own system, or the thread you refer to.

The router has some form of firewall, which takes the internet connection from your (ISP) and disseminates it to your home network computers, giving them IP addresses, (Network Address Translation, NAT) probably in the range of 192.168.0.2 - 192.168.0.254. This in itself is a form of security, since no outside computer can route directly to either of your PCs, without some form of invitation and handshaking process.

There is a site run by an internet security chap called Steve Gibson, with an online tool called "Shields Up" which checks your internet (i.e. TCP/IP) "leakiness". I suggest you check it out to see how secure your router is:

https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

In theory you should not be advertising your presence on the internet at all, if your router is doing its job and your PCs are not set up to act as web servers or other internet server devices. If you can satisfy yourself that your system is secure, then you should be happy to set up a local area TCP/IP network for file and print sharing.

Each laptop can also run a personal firewall such as Zone Alarm, but there may be some issues regarding running with Windows 2000, it would need to be checked for compatibility.
There will certainly be older versions available in archives which will be Win2k compatible.

You can check your laptop's IP address by using the run command from the start menu, typing "cmd" (without quotes) and then in the console typing the command "ipconfig /all" (again without quotes) on both laptops. If they are both in the same range, then your laptops are potentially able to talk to each other via TCP/IP.

The solution for you is then to remove the barriers you have in place, and allow the computers to communicate and print via your network.

Possibly the best way would be to remove the existing network protocol for NETBEUI in Control Panel, Network and Dial-up..., Local Area Connection, (right-click) Properties.

TCP/IP properties need the Client for Microsoft Networks client, File and Printer Sharing Service and TCP/IP protocol installed. The configuration options in Windows2000 are fairly limited, there are not a lot of options to choose from - which makes the job easier, just accept the defaults.

Enough for now, let us know how you progress.

 

[RNFolsom]

flyboytim:

Thanks very much for your response.

Given your statement that "NETBEUI is a 'broadcast' protocol, whereas TCP/IP is 'routed', and is thus capable of greater security," I'd like to learn more about that difference. If you know of a site that explains the difference between broadcast and routed, please let me know. Meanwhile, I will see if there's an explanation at Techtarget's WhatIs, or at Wikipedia.

Some MS website that I unfortunately did not bookmark says (according to my recollection) that WinXP abandoned NetBEUI because it couldn't connect to other networks. For my simple situation, that sounds like it could be a security advantage, rather than a disadvantage.

You raise some interesting questions from Steve Gibson's website (which I have known about for a long time). I spent some time there this evening. But I think Gibson's site actually tested my ISP's address, because my computers are behind my ISP's firewall, and the numeric address that Gibson's site checked is unknown to me.
But I need to confirm that with my ISP before I provide details on my Gibson results. I expect to do that tomorrow (Wednesday 22 December California time).

My apologies for not being more clear about my network's physical setup. Each computer is connected to a Linksys router (BEFSR41) by Category 5 cable. The Linksys router is connected to a Universal DSL modem (actually, merely a switch, my ISP says, in explanation for why it doesn't have a MAC address) by a short Category 5 cable (the Linksys router and the DSL modem are physically adjacent).

So files can be sent directly from one computer to another via the Linksys. (Each computer has one shared "transfer stuff" folder.)

And each computer accesses the internet via the Linksys and the DSL modem.

In my current setup, if one computer is sending a file or files to the other computer's "transfer stuff" folder, they are using NetBEUI (although you may persuade me to change that). But if either computer is using the internet, it is using TCP/IP.

In short, I followed Steve Gibson's advice to bind File and Printer Sharing for MS Networks, and Client for MS Networks, ONLY to NetBEUI, --- that is, to not bind TCP/IP to anything. [This advice is now diagrammed at

http://www.grc.com/su-bondage.htm

(which is about only Win9x and NT), but I'm sure that when I set my networks up I used a more current version --- which I now cannot find on Gibson's website --- that included Win2k.]

For me, an advantage to separating the local file (and printer) sharing network from the internet access network is that I have assigned a name and password for transferring files across NetBEUI, which is additional to the logon name and password for each computer. The benefit is that if one computer gets infected with something it has an obstacle to transferring the infection to the other computer.

The annoyance with that setup is that I can't figure out a way to activate NetBEUI by using the Name and Password that NetBEUI now asks only for transferring files, without actually starting to send a file from one computer to another. For file sending, that's not a problem, but --- at least so far --- it prevents me not only from setting up the HP Officejet Pro 8000 A809a printer as a network printer, but also prevents my computer (which is attached to the printer by USB) from sharing the printer to my wife's computer.

Alternatively, if networking or sharing the Officejet printer is impossible even if I figure out and install Serbtastic's LMHost file suggestions (see my IBM: NetBEUI post) because the printer absolutely requires a TCP/IP network, I'd like some way to preserve Gibson's basic recommendation of separating the local network from the internet.

Again, thanks for your response.

Roger Folsom

 

[flyboytim]

Hi Roger, trying to keep things as simple as they need be.

I don't want to persuade you to change, rather I would like to help you succeed in your goals - to print easily within your local area network, and still feel secure that no-one can access your private documents.

In simple terms, you want your laptop, which is attached to the HP printer by a USB connection, to be a printserver, and accept print jobs from another laptop on the network. The printer is oblivious to the network protocol you are using.

I can attempt to emulate your network on my laptop using VMWare virtual machines with 2 separate Windows 2000 SP4 systems running. In place of your printer, I have my Canon PIXMA IP3000 connected by USB to one virtual Win2k machine, and the other can see and print to the printer. I am logged on both machines as "Administrator" with the same password. This seems to be native - I have not actually set up network printing.

Both machines are in the "WORKGROUP" workgroup and I have both TCP/IP and NETBEUI protocols installed, but no special passwords or separate bindings at present. (In fact, at the moment, I cannot see a "Bindings" option available in the network properties, so I am missing something you'll have to help me with.)

I have now unchecked the "Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)" box in "Local Area Network Properties" for both machines, restarted them and the network printing still works OK, but to check that The TCP/IP is disabled, from the start menu, Run, I typed cmd and then in the command prompt console I typed ipconfig /all to check, and received the following output:

[COLOR=blue white]
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>ipconfig /all

Windows 2000 IP Configuration

Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : WIN2kPC2
Primary DNS Suffix . . . . . . . :
Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcast
IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
[/color]

So, I am fairly happy that a USB printer will run properly on a NETBEUI network. As I said before, the printer does not see the network.

Now I logged off the client machine (i.e. the one without the printer attached) and logged on again as user "Chris", who is not an "administrator", but a "power user", and is not logged on to the print server, since "Administrator" is still on there. Neither does "Chris" appear in the users for that machine. On the print server, (Printers, Canon PIXMA Properties, Security Add Everyone I have set permissions for "everyone" (i.e. all users) to print to the printer, and set sharing to shared as "CanonPIX".

From the client at first I cannot find the printer, and I cannot add the printer as a network printer! However, although the name of the print server machine is visible, I cannot add the printer.

Instead, I have to go to "My Network Places", "Computers Near Me", click on the name of the print server and log onto that machine as "Administrator", with the admin password, and then the printer becomes visible, selectable, and now appears in the printer list for the "Chris" user.

I set it as the default printer, and I can print OK.

Log off, log on as Administrator, log off, log on as Chris: printer still available as default, no problem.

Restart both machines, log on to printserver first as Administrator, then on client as "Chris" and Printers, CanonPIXMA unable to connect!

On the client "My Network Places", "Computers Near Me", click on the printserver, and the "enter network password" dialog appears - the administrator logon is required again.

On the Printserver we need to create the user "Chris" as a member of "Power Users", with the password and other details used on the client machine. Now, after restarting the client machine, user "Chris" can seamlessly access the printer, and the printserver, without having to re-enter a password or log on as Administrator. In this case, no file or folder shares have been enabled.

All that is now required is to reinstate TCP/IP, but not allowing NETBIOS over TCP/IP. Enough for now.

Roger, I imagine the SJSU email follows a standard user name format, as per the other staff, so I can email you there if you want, in order to discuss any points more fully. Let me know.

"Chris"

 

[flyboytim]

Ok Roger, here's the bottom line as I see it.

Your wife's laptop is the client, and does not need to share any of it's folders or attached devices.

It requires, at a minimum, just two users set up, an administrator, and your wife as a user (I would elevate that to power user, but that is my choice).

It is running TCP/IP for internet access and NETBEUI for file and printer sharing activity, and you are satsified that the bindings do not allow sharing of services (in this set-up, it has no shared services anyway).

It can see your laptop (the server) across the network, which has a folder share for transferring files, and has a networked shared printer.

Your laptop, the server, has two shared entities, a folder for files and a printer, connected by USB.

It requires three users set up. An administrator. Two users (or power users), viz. yourself and your wife.

Like your wife's machine, it is running TCP/IP for internet access and NETBEUI for file and printer sharing activity, and you are satsified that the bindings do not allow sharing of services via TCP/IP, only NETBEUI. The shared folder and the shared printer are available to user yourself, and user your wife.

And that's it. All the configuration done either in the Network and Dial-up... Control Panel or the Users and Passwords Control Panel dialog (as administrator), and in the properties of the shared folder and the properties of the shared printer.

No messing about with LMHOSTS.SAM (keep the default).

Everything is safely behind your Linksys Router, nothing shared with the outside world.

Just a further word on administrators. There needs to be a standard default Administrator account on each PC with a good secure password. It is also not a bad idea to have a second administrator account with a different name and good strong password that can administer both machines, just in case the default administrator becomes unobtainable by some odd, hard to explain gremlin.

 

[RNFolsom]

flyboytim:

Thanks very much for your two posts. You have done a lot of work on my behalf, and I appreciate that very much. There's a lot in those two posts for me to digest, and Christmas is about here, so I will get back to you next week.

After some Google searches, I now have an understanding of NetBEUI being a broadcast protocol and TCP/IP being a routed protocol.

And I have confirmed with my ISP that Gibson's results described my ISP's firewall (which I am behind) and not my computer; Gibson's website's ShieldsUp tests didn't reach anything on either of my two computers.

Your information that "The printer is oblivious to the network protocol you are using," and your reinforcement of that as "the printer does not see the network," was extremely encouraging.

Also, you wrote "In fact, at the moment, I cannot see a 'Bindings' option available in the network properties, so I am missing something you'll have to help me with."

I've never used a virtual machine, but my Win2k "bindings" are at Start, Settings, Network and Dial-up Connections, Local Area Connection, Advanced menu, Advanced Settings, Adapters and Bindings tab, Local Area Connection. At that location, File and Printer Sharing for MS Networks is checked (bound) only to NetBEUI Protocol, and Client for MS Networks also is checked (bound) only to NetBEUI protocol. TCP/IP isn't checked (i.e. nothing is bound to it).

With regard to your multiple administrators approach (which I have not yet studied), you wrote that it involved "No messing about with LMHOSTS.SAM (keep the default)."

At the moment, my default is that LMHosts.sam is empty, except for instructions. It never has been used; its modification date is 08 May 2001.

But I don't know why you are avoiding using the LMHosts.sam file. It sounds simpler than your approach (which I need to study, as I said above), as described in the IBM: NetBEUI forum, in Ancalagon's "Printer sharing with NetBEUI" Thread 578-679415 (at

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=679415&page=2)

Ancalagon was trying (but failing) to use NetBEUI to share, with a Win2k computer, a printer attached to a WinXP computer. And (after scrolling down), Serbtastic's response was:

"You need to populate the lmhosts files on both machines with the following:
XPIP XPNAME #PRE
W2KIP W2KNAME #PRE
"Where
XPIP is the XP machine's IP address
XPNAME is the XP machine's name
W2KIP is the W2K machine's IP address
W2KNAME is the W2K machine's name

"Then, run nbtstat -R to refresh the remote cache name table, and you should be able to see the shares on the other machine by going to Start - Run - and typing \\NAME"

Of course, in my case the XP computer would be my Win2k computer, to which my Officejet printer is attached by a USB cable.

I haven't yet tried Serbtastic's advice because it is missing some details: I don't know whether the computer IP addresses should be numeric (which I guess is the case) or a computer's name such as \\DellC840 (used only after running nbtstat -R).

And I would guess that the LMHosts.sam file (which contains only instructions) keeps using the .sam (for sample?) extension.

But Ancalogon never posted a final "thank you for solving my problem," so maybe Serbtastic's advice didn't work.

In short, at your convenience, please let me know what's wrong with using the LMHosts file.

Meahwhile, have a great Merry Christmas Holiday weekend!

Roger Folsom

________________________________________________________________

P.S. You wrote that you "imagine the SJSU email follows a standard user name format, as per the other staff, so I can email you there if you want, in order to discuss any points more fully. Let me know."

The California State University system is under severe financial stress due to the entire state government's being in severe financial stress (along with major and minor cities), and I have no confidence that my SJSU email address would work properly. (For example, as of a couple of months ago, they're not replacing outdoor lights that burn out.)

In fact, SJSU has "always" (since I joined the faculty in 1976, and taught classes until 1999) had a weak IT operations department (although my understanding was that the academic computing department was pretty good), because it was very hard for SJSU to compete with IT firms such as Google and Cisco et. al. for top technicians and programmers. San Jose's high housing costs didn't help.
And though I do have an email account there, I haven't used it in years, and no one has sent an email to my SJSU email address for many years. Instead, my colleagues send mail to my "residence office" email.

So I'm perfectly heppy continuing to communicate with you in this thread. And maybe it will be of use to others.

However, I owe you big time for all the work you have done to help me, so if it's easier for you to use email, let me know and I'll be happy to provide my active email address to you. "RNFolsom" is already all over the internet (I get lots of spam; fortunately my ISP offers the TMDA anti-spam filter), but nevertheless I'll refrain from posing my active email address here unless you want to use it.

 

[flyboytim]

Hi Roger, Merry Christmas Greetings! No doubt we shall talk here after the festivities.

I think I know why the network binding options are not available to me, on Win2k (I am familiar with the use of Bindings on Win 9x and Win 3.x), but I have a little more exploration to do.

P.S.

There's a rule hereabouts: NO EMAIL ADDRESSES on Tek-Tips - or anywhere else on the public internet if you want to remain unmolested by spammers and worse!

 

[flyboytim]

I hope the New Year is being good to you and your family.

LMHOSTS is for resolving NetBIOS names on Primary Domain Controllers over TCP/IP. This has nothing to do with NetBEUI peer-to-peer workgroups.

To share the USB connected Printer on your server laptop (As Administrator!):

To share the device on a locally shared network
In a locally shared network, the device is connected directly to the USB connector of a
selected computer (known as the server) and is shared by other computers (clients).
NOTE: When sharing a directly connected device, use the computer with the
newest operating system as the server.
Use this configuration only in small groups or when usage is low. The connected
computer is slowed down when many users print to the device.
1. Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Printers or Printers and Faxes.
- Or -
Click Start, click Control Panel, and then double-click Printers.
2. Right-click the device icon, click Properties, and then click the Sharing tab.
3. Click the option to share the device, and give it a share name.

On the security tab, add the network user name for yourself and for your wife from the list of names. If those users are not on the list, do the following, still as Administrator:

Right-click My Computer, Manage, Local Users and Groups, Users, Action, New User..., and put an entry for your wife's user logon and a password that she can change to her usual logon password for her own laptop the first time she logs onto a share on your machine. Click Create.
(Do the same for your own user logon if for some reason you do not appear in the list of names) and finish by closing the dialog.

While still in the management console, click on shared folders, shares, print$. print$ is a hidden share to the print spooler folder.

Right-click, then Properties, Share Permissions and make sure that all the Allow boxes are checked for yourself, wife, and Administrator accounts, so that users can clear print queues, etc., remotely. Click OK to finish.

Make sure there is a shared folder, e.g. C:\shared with Properties, Share Permissions for the same users as before allowed full control. If there is not a folder create one and add the users permissions. Click OK, and finish with the printer shares security tab where we started.

If you can't do some or any of these tasks, is there a firewall stopping you, or does your antivirus interfere? You may need to temporarily disable them to do some administrative tasks.

If you are happy that all is well, continue as below.

From the command prompt >ipconfig /release
stops TCP/IP activity and disables the internet.
(>ipconfig /renew restarts it)

With TCP/IP disabled, attempt to open the server's shared folder from the client machine on your wife's logon. (My Network Places, Computers Near Me (i.e. workgroup). It should ask for a password (the one given for the new user on the server) and then for the user to change the password (to the current logon password). Thus any further access should be automatic, using the logon credentials. Same with printing. On first access, the printer driver files should be transferred and installed on the client machine. The newly installed networked printer should be set as default on the client machine.

Finally restart the TCP/IP service.

That should be it.

 

[RNFolsom]

flyboytim:

Please excuse my tardy reply. The end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011 generated some unexpected extra projects that had to take priority.

Thank you very much for all your work, especially your last set of instructions.

Sometime next week I expect to get some spare time and implement your suggestions, and report back.

But meanwhile, I should note that the your additional instructions added to your quotation from the HP Officejet Pro manual (which I do have) really filled in the gaps.

Thanks again.

Roger Folsom