It used to work ...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Duncan Williamson
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Duncan Williamson

I am thoroughly ashamed of myself. I have been computing
for over 20 years now and I have been defeated by a
simple, crossover cable style Peer to Peer network based
on Windows XP Home.

I have a laptop as the Host and a desktop as the guest. I
used to be able to share files, printer, internet
connection ... I went away on business and took the laptop
away with me. The desktop functioned normally in
standalone mode whilst I was away.

When I reunited the two darlings, they worked well on day
1 simply by plugging in the network cable. Overnight, the
two computers initiated divorce proceedings and they
haven't spoken since!

I don't know what to do now as I have a broadband
connection that I want to share with the desktop otherwise
the Mrs will NEED her own connection ...

I've searched, hummed and gnashed and cannot fathom what
should be so simple.

ANYTHING that will reunite my star crossed lovers will
earn my deepest regard!
 
When you USED to use the network did you see the computers
in my network places? if so there is a multitude of option
boxes that you have to fight through to make it work im
haveing a similar problem with one of my computers through
a hub.

go to microsoft.com and type XP workgroup in the search
and in the troubleshoot box i found a good report anout
Net bios and TCP/IP enabling!

alan
 
Duncan Williamson said:
I am thoroughly ashamed of myself. I have been computing
for over 20 years now and I have been defeated by a
simple, crossover cable style Peer to Peer network based
on Windows XP Home.

I have a laptop as the Host and a desktop as the guest. I
used to be able to share files, printer, internet
connection ... I went away on business and took the laptop
away with me. The desktop functioned normally in
standalone mode whilst I was away.

When I reunited the two darlings, they worked well on day
1 simply by plugging in the network cable. Overnight, the
two computers initiated divorce proceedings and they
haven't spoken since!

I don't know what to do now as I have a broadband
connection that I want to share with the desktop otherwise
the Mrs will NEED her own connection ...
Click to expand...

Duncan,

don't be ashamed, things like this happen to all of us. If
anybody needs to be ashamed of unreliable computing, it is not
the end user.

Please have a look at http://www.michna.com/kb/WxNetwork.htm.

Hans-Georg
 
"Duncan said:
I am thoroughly ashamed of myself. I have been computing
for over 20 years now and I have been defeated by a
simple, crossover cable style Peer to Peer network based
on Windows XP Home.

I have a laptop as the Host and a desktop as the guest. I
used to be able to share files, printer, internet
connection ... I went away on business and took the laptop
away with me. The desktop functioned normally in
standalone mode whilst I was away.

When I reunited the two darlings, they worked well on day
1 simply by plugging in the network cable. Overnight, the
two computers initiated divorce proceedings and they
haven't spoken since!

I don't know what to do now as I have a broadband
connection that I want to share with the desktop otherwise
the Mrs will NEED her own connection ...

I've searched, hummed and gnashed and cannot fathom what
should be so simple.

ANYTHING that will reunite my star crossed lovers will
earn my deepest regard!
Click to expand...

These tests should help you find the problem:

1. On the laptop, right click the local area network connection and
click Status | Support | Details. It should show:

IP Address: 192.168.0.1
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway: none
DNS Server = none

2. On the desktop, right click the local area network connection and
click Status | Support | Details. It should show:

IP Address: 192.168.0.x (1<x<255)
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway: 192.168.0.1
DNS Server = 192.168.0.1

3. If #1 and #2 are right, open a command prompt window on the desktop
and enter these lines. Each one should get four replies:

ping 192.168.0.1
ping <laptop's computer name>
ping 216.239.39.100
ping www.google.com
--
Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Networking)

Please post any reply as a follow-up message in the news group
for everyone to see. I'm sorry, but I don't answer questions
addressed directly to me in E-mail or news groups.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Program
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
 
Thanks, Alan. Yes, everything appeared as it should, in
the old days.

I will take a look later on at the resources you have
identified but might need to ask follow up questions, of
course!

Duncan
 
Thanks Hans-Georg,

I've had a quick look at what seems to be very useful.
I'll take a more careful look once I've finished my day
job and will report back on my success!

Duncan
 
As I understand this, you have the internet connection on the laptop and are
sharing it with the desktop. Correct?
Btw, is this an ethernet cross-over setup or serial/parallel?

You could try hard setting the DNS server addresses on the desktop to what
the laptop is using.
With the internet connected on the laptop, at a command prompt, type:
ipconfig /all
Take the DNS server addresses returned and enter those in the desktop TCP/IP
properties.
This may at least get your internet connection sharing working.
Make sure you have an account on both computers with the same username and
password. Log in to both with that account.

Rich
 
"Duncan said:
Thanks Steve. I tried the pinging and succeeded with three
out of four.


What next?

Duncan
Click to expand...

Make sure that NetBIOS Over TCP/IP is enabled on both computers:

1. Open the Network Connections folder.
2. Right click the local area network connection and click Properties.
3. Double click Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).
4. Click Advanced.
5. Click WINS.
6. Click the Enable NetBIOS Over TCP/IP button.

Run "ipconfig /all" on both computers and look at the "Node Type" at
the beginning of the output. If it says "Peer-to-Peer" (which should
really say "Point-to-Point") that's the problem. It means that the
computer only uses a WINS server, which isn't available on a true
peer-to-peer network for NetBIOS name resolution.

If that's the case, run the registry editor, open this key:

HLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Netbt\Parameters

and delete these values if they're present:

NodeType
DhcpNodeType

Reboot, then try network access again.

If that doesn't fix it, open that registry key again, create a DWORD
value called "NodeType", and set it to 1 for "Broadcast" or 4 for
"Mixed".

For details, see the section on "NodeType" in this Microsoft Knowledge
Base article:

TCP/IP and NBT Configuration Parameters for Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314053
--
Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Networking)

Please post any reply as a follow-up message in the news group
for everyone to see. I'm sorry, but I don't answer questions
addressed directly to me in E-mail or news groups.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Program
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
 
I've tried everything suggested on this board and nothing
is working.

Can I delete the network settings and start again? I tried
but it wouldn't let me. I tried to set up a new connection
too but it just over writes the old one so I can't really
tell whether I've made any progress or changes.

So simply yet so disastrous!

Duncan
 
"Duncan said:
I've tried everything suggested on this board and nothing
is working.

Can I delete the network settings and start again? I tried
but it wouldn't let me. I tried to set up a new connection
too but it just over writes the old one so I can't really
tell whether I've made any progress or changes.

So simply yet so disastrous!

Duncan
Click to expand...

You can't delete a network connection directly. You can go to Device
Manager and delete the network adapter that the connection uses, then
reboot and let Windows XP re-detect the network adapter and create a
new connection.

Another possibility is to use System Restore to go back in time to
before the problem occurred. If there are files that you've been
working on and you don't want to have them replaced by the earlier
versions, put them in the My Documents folder. System Restore doesn't
make changes in My Documents.
--
Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Networking)

Please post any reply as a follow-up message in the news group
for everyone to see. I'm sorry, but I don't answer questions
addressed directly to me in E-mail or news groups.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Program
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
 
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