Networking: Windows XP PCs can't see each other

[julesH]

Hi,

Just purchased a D-Link 604+ ADSL wireless router. I have setup the ADSL connection settings and wireless settings and both Windows XP machines can browse the internet fine.

But I cannot see one XP Pc from the other. Further to that I cannot even ping the other PC.

Any ideas, as I thought that once they were both talking to the router, that they should be able to see each other?

Many thanks in advance,

JulesH.

 

[aaronjonmartin]

I think you may have to configure your router to allow your computers to see each other, i dont really know how to do that. One other thing though, do you have a firewall (you should because of MSBlaster!)? Have you set the other computers ip address as a trusted connection?

 

[mjinks61]

Good morning Jules,

I am currently on my w2k machine and can't remember exactly how to get to it in XP, but go to XP's help and search for firewall.

XP has a built in firewall and comes out of the box enabled.
This will need to be disabled.

Also make sure you have file and print sharing enabled on each box, and that at least one file or folder is shared on each machine.

Since you are using a router, I would assume the IP addressing and subnet, gateway etc. issues are fine.

Good luck, and Happy Computing

 

[julesH]

Thanks for the comments guys.

The router side of things looks fine, using DHCP, both PCs seem to have the same subnet and consecutive IP addresses.

I do have Norton personal firewall still on one PC so I will remove that along with checking how to turn off the built in XP firewall.

The router obviously has an inbuilt firewall, will check the settings when I get home.

 

[bcastner]

The native XP ICF firewall is not enabled by default, but is always enabled if you use the New Connection Wizard or the Networking Wizard.

To disable ICF, right-click your Connection icon in the notification tray area (little blinking computers), Open Network Connection, right-click the active Network Connection, Properties, Advanced and see if ICF is enabled. To disable clear the check mark.

If you cannot ping and otherwise your internet connection seems fine, it is a firewall issue.

Since you are behind a NAT router you do not need the XP ICF firewall to block msblast and similar intrusions. for the Norton or other firewall products you want to make certain that in the Intranet Zone your local network is not firewalled. In addition, for the Linksys and other routers if you are blocking Wan requests you will not be pingable from outside the network.

 

[kmcferrin]

Looks like it's mostly covered, but a couple points:

Are you pinging by IP or by hostname? If by hostname, then unless you're running some sort of WINS/DNS setup internally (your firewall will handle DNS requests for Internet addresses, but not internally) you're not going to be able to locate the other machine by name, try via IP address and see if that works.

If that turns out to be the problem, create a file called HOSTS (no extension) in the %systemroot%\system32\drivers\etc directory that looks like this:


127.0.0.1 localhost
IP address1 hostname1
IP address2 hostname2