PC on network demands password

[RayMunro]

I have a 4 pc peer-to-peer network connected via a hub. All have been recently upgraded from Me to XP. Three can see and talk to each other properly. However one pc is giving problems. After installation it could not access any pc on the network. Adding a new user called "test" made it act as follows. One of the other pcs cannot find it at all. the other two get asked for a user name and password. The problem pc can access all pcs and copy files to and from them. All the pcs, including the one that cannot see it, can ping it. All pcs have manually selected IP addresses in 192.168.254.x range. All pcs can acess internet via router attached to hub. Removing "test" reverts back to it not seeing any pc. All pcs are set as administrators and no passwords have been added to any of the pcs. Confused? I am. Any help would be gratefully received.

 

[alpha4eva]

that's one problem that XP have, go into Explorer, do Tool->Fold Options, on the View tab, scroll down and uncheck the Use simple file sharing option, try to networking using TCP/IP only and see if it's working

 

[RayMunro]

I've tried switching simple file sharing on and off and it makes no difference.TCP/IP works. All pcs can ping each other. The dodgy pc shows up on network places/workgroup but nothing happens when you click it or try to add it as a network place.

 

[DMAN666]

Is your XP machine NTFS? Thats known to cause problems. Also on the XP CD there is a program that you run on the other computers. Stick the Xp CD in the WIN cd rom, let the auto start come up, choose Perform Additional Tasks, then Set Up A Home Office Network, then follow the prompts.

Worked for me, Good luck!

 

[RayMunro]

Thanks for the thought. Tried that, sets it up ok but still won't allow access without a password. If I knew what the password was then I could live with it, but I don't!!

 

[Squrl79]

I would try to boot the trouble computer up in safe mode by pressing f8 on boot. There should be an administrator account that was not there. When i upgraded mine to xp i had some trouble and there was a user account that came out of nowhere i had to boot up in safe mode and create another admin account that solved a bunch of my problems and also created some new ones. well, I don't know if that will help you out or not worth a try though

 

[wolluf]

Have you checked that ALL machines are running with same simplified sharing setting? (ie, either on or off?). And that all PCs are sharing at least one resource? If simplified sharing is on on all machines, and its not working, could try switching it off on all machines (and resharing resources - I think when you switch from/to simplified sharing it wipes out any shares you've already set up) and making sure each has users set up with same user name/password you use to access other 3 machines. If this doesn't work and machine can be easily set up from scratch, I'd try backing up, reformatting and clean install XP on problem machine.