Windows 2000 Can't ping by HostName

[wisdomwarrior23]

Hey guys I have two Windows 2000 workstations and a Windows 98 workstation on my home network connected by a hub. My Windows 98 machine can ping by IP address and Hostname one of my Windows 2000 machines but not the other. THis particular problem machine on the network can't ping by hostname any of the other machines but it can ping by IP address. That would suggest a DNS problem right although I don't have a DNS server nor am I running DNS how can I correct this problem guys and gals. Thanks for any advice or guidance given.

 

[epohl]

If this is just a small home network without WINS or DNS and all computers have static addresses, you can just create a LMHOSTS file that contains the Computer Names and ip addresses. Make sure you enable lmhost lookup on the 2000 machines.

 

[wisdomwarrior23]

Yeah I did this epohl but I think I may not have done it correctly or is there something in the registry that I need to change in order for the lmhost files to work on all machines. Thanks man

 

[Galrahn]

you have probably already checked this but...

Does the machine giving you trouble have 2 network cards (ICS), a firewall, in a different subnet, have netbios disabled, accessable from the windows 2k box but not the win98 box, or some other network config/application that would create this issue?

Its very possible that if you can ping hostname with no problems between the W2K machines, but the Win98 machine cannot ping 1 of the W2K machine, that your problem is in your how your policy is configured. Win98 cannot support all that W2K can, and could be configured on accident (or purpose) so that Win98 cannot see it.

If one of the above is the problem and your still unable to find the solution, let me know more details and maybe we can solve the problem. Best bet is to compare security policies first of your W2K machines, you could find the problem there.

Also you could use the host file instead, Host file can be more reliable for workgroups on small networks.

Let me know if this helps.

Galrahn

 

[wisdomwarrior23]

Hey thanks guys, the Win2k machine that is not able to ping by hostname the other two machine on my home network does have two network cards. I had that machine setup to act as a proxy server using wingate to provide the other machines with internet access through its connection. I didn't check to see if netbios is disabled I will do that and the subnets and ip's are all on the same range same network so that shouldn't be part of the problem. I recently took off the wingate on the machine that is giving me trouble but I was still able to ping by hostname all the other machines on the network with no problem. Just last week I started having this trouble. Thanks guys for additional help! Happy New Year too!

 

[edslock]

The lmhosts file is cashed in your computer, check the entries are correct for your lan, they should be the same on all computers, go to a dos box type nbtstat -R, this will reload the cashe, type nbtstat -c, to view the cashe and verify it is correct on all computers.

 

[wisdomwarrior23]

Thanks edslock works like a charm! I didn't have my host files setup correctly on all the machines. Thanks for the excellent tip, Happy New Year.