Trouble establishing two-machine network

[Anthony Buckland]

I'm a long-term user of Win98SE, but a newbie to WinXP (Media edition)
and to networking (first time I've had two machines in the house
capable of networking). My problem is that I can't get networking
to, well, work.

The older Win98SE is a Compaq Presario 7AP190. The new WinXP-M
is a Sony VAIO VGC-RB54G (300Gby/1Gby/Pentium D). Each has an
Ethernet port. I've connected them both (one with a short cable,
one with a 7-metre cable anticipating its move to another room)
to a D-Link DGS-1005D 5-port gigabit switch. The switch
successfully runs a diagnostic on each connection at power-up,
and then indicates good connections at 100Mbps. So the
mechanical side looks ok to my newbie perceptions.

I've been through the network setup on both machines several
times, but the outcome is always that the Win98SE machine
finds no other computers on the network, and the WinXP-M
machine reports no or limited connectivity and can't find
the older machine. Is this a common problem? Is there a
Guide For Perplexed Network Newbies somewhere? Any help
would be much appreciated.

A final note about the network wizard under WinXP-M:
it seems able to deal with the situation (which is the
one I'm in) of two machines which may independently
connect to the Internet, but its reaction is to warn
me that then file sharing would result in my sharing
files with the whole Net. I just want to share between
the machines, and to keep the world at large strictly
out. My Net connection is still dial-up: my section of
North Vancouver is still without high-speed telephone
(too far from the phone office -- yup, you heard right,
one of Vancouver's more affluent suburbs has a big
section without a service city folks are supposed to
be able to take for granted), plus my alarm system
prevents me from connecting to high-speed phone if it
were available; and the cable company would require me
to pay high business rates to have my personal domain on
their system. So Net connections for me are for now through
the machines' modems and can't go through the switch.

Something is missing in my comprehension (likely) or
in that of Microsoft (not unheard of).

 

[Guest]

"The XP machine reports no or limited connectivity"

Do you have static IP addresses? If so they may not be on the same subnet.
Make sure they are both something like 192.168.1.XXX

Also make sure your cable is good-swap it with the other cable and see if
the problem goes away or follows the cable.

Move it to a different port in the switch.

Make sure the workgroup names are the same as well.

Put an username/password into Local Users and Groups on the XP machine for
the Windows 98 machine.

Good luck!

 

[Mike Hyndman]

I'm a long-term user of Win98SE, but a newbie to WinXP (Media edition)
and to networking (first time I've had two machines in the house
capable of networking). My problem is that I can't get networking
to, well, work.

The older Win98SE is a Compaq Presario 7AP190. The new WinXP-M
is a Sony VAIO VGC-RB54G (300Gby/1Gby/Pentium D). Each has an
Ethernet port. I've connected them both (one with a short cable,
one with a 7-metre cable anticipating its move to another room)
to a D-Link DGS-1005D 5-port gigabit switch. The switch
successfully runs a diagnostic on each connection at power-up,
and then indicates good connections at 100Mbps. So the
mechanical side looks ok to my newbie perceptions.

I've been through the network setup on both machines several
times, but the outcome is always that the Win98SE machine
finds no other computers on the network, and the WinXP-M
machine reports no or limited connectivity and can't find
the older machine. Is this a common problem? Is there a
Guide For Perplexed Network Newbies somewhere? Any help
would be much appreciated.

A final note about the network wizard under WinXP-M:
it seems able to deal with the situation (which is the
one I'm in) of two machines which may independently
connect to the Internet, but its reaction is to warn
me that then file sharing would result in my sharing
files with the whole Net. I just want to share between
the machines, and to keep the world at large strictly
out. My Net connection is still dial-up: my section of
North Vancouver is still without high-speed telephone
(too far from the phone office -- yup, you heard right,
one of Vancouver's more affluent suburbs has a big
section without a service city folks are supposed to
be able to take for granted), plus my alarm system
prevents me from connecting to high-speed phone if it
were available; and the cable company would require me
to pay high business rates to have my personal domain on
their system. So Net connections for me are for now through
the machines' modems and can't go through the switch.

Something is missing in my comprehension (likely) or
in that of Microsoft (not unheard of).

Is your XP firewall blocking the W98PC?
Do both PC's have the same workgroup name?
How are IP addresses applied, static or dynamic? They must be in the same
range and subnet.
If you ran the wizard, did you make the disc to run on other PC's?

MH

 

[Anthony Buckland]

...

Is your XP firewall blocking the W98PC?

Didn't think of that one, I'll have a look.
.... ok, all my network connections (LAN,
1394, and of course Net, are firewalled).
I'll see if I can be selective about turning
the firewall off.
.... ok, File and Printer Sharing is not checked
as an exception to Windows Firewall. If I allow
this exception, do I risk penetration from the Net?
I note Remote Desktop is another exception I can
make. I'll look a bit closer at this issue in
the manual (the big MS one).

Do both PC's have the same workgroup name?
Yes.

How are IP addresses applied, static or dynamic? They must be in the same
range and subnet.

Haven't a clue, first I'll have to find out what they are.
.... on the XP machine, the setting is "Obtain an IP address
automatically". There's an option to specify one, though.
I'll see what I can find out under Win98SE.

If you ran the wizard, did you make the disc to run on other PC's?

Nope, on several tries it would offer me only the flashcard
and other media ports, not the DVD-RW, so I just opted out
of making one. The only way my old machine could get at a
flash card is via my camera, and I'm not sure that offers
any data transfer option.

MH

Thanks. As you can see, I've already found some data. I'll
try some experiments after I'm off the net.

 

[Anthony Buckland]

"The XP machine reports no or limited connectivity"

Do you have static IP addresses? If so they may not be on the same subnet.
Make sure they are both something like 192.168.1.XXX

On the XP machine, they're not static. I'll look into the 98SE
machine later.

Also make sure your cable is good-swap it with the other cable and see if
the problem goes away or follows the cable.

Up to now, I've been trusting the switch's diagnosis, but I'll
certainly try exchanging if software fixes don't work

Move it to a different port in the switch.

Tried various combinations, no change.

Make sure the workgroup names are the same as well.

Yup, one of the first things I paid attention to.

Put an username/password into Local Users and Groups on the XP machine for
the Windows 98 machine.

Didn't think of that issue as an issue. Startup on the 98SE machine
isn't password-controlled, if that's what you're referring to.

Good luck!

...

Thanks.

 

[Anthony Buckland]

"The XP machine reports no or limited connectivity"

Do you have static IP addresses? If so they may not be on the same subnet.
Make sure they are both something like 192.168.1.XXX

Also make sure your cable is good-swap it with the other cable and see if
the problem goes away or follows the cable.

Move it to a different port in the switch.

Make sure the workgroup names are the same as well.

Put an username/password into Local Users and Groups on the XP machine for
the Windows 98 machine.

Good luck!

...

An update: I changed to static IP addresses, basically following
the example in the MS WinXP reference and bumping the IP
address by one in the final ("xxx") section on one machine.
The "no or limited connectivity" condition immediately went
away. As an experiment, I tried giving both machines the
_same_ IP address, and promptly got a complaint. I assume this
means the network is properly carrying data, and that I don't
have to worry about the cables. I definitely have the same
workgroup for both machines, namely the default suggested MSHOME.

I don't quite get your last suggestion yet, but I'll dive into
the Help facility and research it.

So my situation now is, I connect to the LAN successfully, but
neither machine can see the other or anything on it yet. When
I ask Network Places on the XP machine for all the computers
in the workgroup, it can't find either of them, including the
machine I'm on; it spends a dozen or two seconds trying, and
then issues an error message stating that "Mshome is not accessible.
You might not have permission to use this network resource.
Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you
have access permissions. The list of servers for this workgroup
is not currently available."

Thanks for any further thoughts.

 

[Anthony Buckland]

...


Is your XP firewall blocking the W98PC?
Do both PC's have the same workgroup name?
How are IP addresses applied, static or dynamic? They must be in the same
range and subnet.
If you ran the wizard, did you make the disc to run on other PC's?

MH

An update: by using static IP addresses, I've attained
connectivity; despite the Wizard's inability to put
the DVD-RW drive in the list of places to write the
disc to run on other machines, I managed the transfer
by writing to a spare Compactflash card, reading the
data right back and then writing it to a CD in the
DVD-RW drive -- I then read the CD into the Win98SE
machine and ran the Wizard there.

The bottom line so far is that I have connectivity,
I know data is flowing from machine to machine because
I experimentally temporarily gave the same IP address
to both machines and got an error message, but I still
can't access or even find either machine from the other.

Thanks for any further thoughts. I feel that this is
_supposed_ to be an easy and routine task, but that in
my ignorance I'm missing something basic, something
that the Wizard so far hasn't hinted at.

One peculiarity _could_ I suppose be that I'm using
dial-up Internet access, and so have told the Wizard
that either machine may access the Internet directly,
which is true. Except when I have a reason to be on
the net, no access is present, which is a different
situation from the increasingly common user who had
an always-on cable connection. Can this be a problem?

 

[Mike Hyndman]

An update: by using static IP addresses, I've attained
connectivity; despite the Wizard's inability to put
the DVD-RW drive in the list of places to write the
disc to run on other machines, I managed the transfer
by writing to a spare Compactflash card, reading the
data right back and then writing it to a CD in the
DVD-RW drive -- I then read the CD into the Win98SE
machine and ran the Wizard there.

The bottom line so far is that I have connectivity,
I know data is flowing from machine to machine because
I experimentally temporarily gave the same IP address
to both machines and got an error message, but I still
can't access or even find either machine from the other.

Thanks for any further thoughts. I feel that this is
_supposed_ to be an easy and routine task, but that in
my ignorance I'm missing something basic, something
that the Wizard so far hasn't hinted at.

One peculiarity _could_ I suppose be that I'm using
dial-up Internet access, and so have told the Wizard
that either machine may access the Internet directly,
which is true. Except when I have a reason to be on
the net, no access is present, which is a different
situation from the increasingly common user who had
an always-on cable connection. Can this be a problem?

Anthony
Re disc, I've seen this written to a floppy disc.
You cannot have the same IP address on both PC's otherwise there will be a
conflict, hence the error message. For example, If PC 1 is 192.168.2.1 with
a subnet 255.255.255.0, then it follows that PC 2 will be 192.169.2.2 with
the same subnet. A quick way of ascertaining the assigned IP addresses is to
type
" ipconfig/all " (ignore quotes) into a command line (type cmd or command
into the run box) When you have discovered the PC's IP addresses, try
"pinging" them, type ping xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx.(x's being the IP address) into
the command line. The fact you are using dial up doesn't come into the
equation.re addresses, but with a modem only one PC can access the net
directly.
Things to check:
IP addresses, both PC's in the same range, e.g. 192.168.2.xxx (not the same)
Subnet 255.255.255.0 (both the same)
Workgroup = same name.
Re problem, If you was using a modem/router, then maybe, as this would have
its own IP address and have the facility to supply addresses, if enabled, to
the other PC's on your network.
If you haven't got "My Network Places" shown in your "start" menu, go to
Start>Control panel>Network Connections. Then right click on your connectoin
and select Properties. Make sure you have File and Printer sharing installed
and ticked. Whilst there, you could also check your IP addresses from the
TCP/IP tab.

HTH
MH

 

[Anthony Buckland]

...

Anthony
Re disc, I've seen this written to a floppy disc.
You cannot have the same IP address on both PC's otherwise there will be a
conflict, hence the error message.

Yup, I know. Sorry if I confused the issue. I experimented
temporarily, setting the same IP address on both machines,
just to see if the other machine could be seen well enough
that the system could tell it had the same address. I
wanted to see if my newly-achieved connectivity really
connected to that extent. Then I switched one address back
to the proper situation, two different addresses.

For example, If PC 1 is 192.168.2.1 with

a subnet 255.255.255.0, then it follows that PC 2 will be 192.169.2.2 with
the same subnet. A quick way of ascertaining the assigned IP addresses is to
type
" ipconfig/all " (ignore quotes) into a command line (type cmd or command
into the run box) When you have discovered the PC's IP addresses, try
"pinging" them, type ping xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx.(x's being the IP address) into
the command line.

I outlined my problem on the general Win98SE group, and
a kind soul there went to some trouble outlining the
usefulness of pinging and listing the various addresses
I could ping. I'm getting mixed results, and I'm going
to back up and record the results of systematically
dia/enabling sharing, the Windows Firewall, the Norton
firewall, and Norton's virus scan.

The fact you are using dial up doesn't come into the

equation.re addresses, but with a modem only one PC can access the net
directly.

Right. But each of my machines has its own modem and they
take turns on different occasions being the machine that
connects. They do so directly to the phone line, not via
the network router.

Things to check:
IP addresses, both PC's in the same range, e.g. 192.168.2.xxx (not the same)
Subnet 255.255.255.0 (both the same)
Workgroup = same name.
Definitely.

Re problem, If you was using a modem/router, then maybe, as this would have
its own IP address and have the facility to supply addresses, if enabled, to
the other PC's on your network.
If you haven't got "My Network Places" shown in your "start" menu,

It's there, and I've been spending a lot of time in it.

go to

Start>Control panel>Network Connections. Then right click on your connectoin
and select Properties. Make sure you have File and Printer sharing installed
and ticked. Whilst there, you could also check your IP addresses from the
TCP/IP tab.

HTH
MH

Thanks. I have some more experimenting to do, and I plan
to get something out of my investment in MS' "Windows XP
Inside Out" by ploughing through the networking section,
which I've only dived into via the index so far. Since
I've been getting some help on the Win98SE group, I'm
going to indulge in that usually bad habit, cross-posting
to there.

 

[Anthony Buckland]

...
[helpful stuff]
...

Thanks. I have some more experimenting to do, and I plan
to get something out of my investment in MS' "Windows XP
Inside Out" by ploughing through the networking section,
which I've only dived into via the index so far. Since
I've been getting some help on the Win98SE group, I'm
going to indulge in that usually bad habit, cross-posting
to there.

The reading was helpful, but when I got to the
pinging section (about which I already had
patient help in the Win98SE group), I resolved
to go through it systematically while trying
some possibly helpful things. One of them turned
out to be the solution to most of my problems,
namely turning off Norton Personal Firewall on
both machines. I now have a functional network
for the important tasks of accessing the old
machine's files and using its printer from the
new machine.

Thanks again to the several people who have
helped.

I'll need to wrestle with Norton Personal
Firewall some, so that I don't have to keep
turning it off to network and on to use the
Internet.

One function doesn't work yet, though. To
access the new (WinXP) machine from the old
one, I'm told I need a password. But I don't
have a password logon on the new machine, so
how am I supposed to supply one? Nothing
obvious comes up on Help: OTOH, the book may
help with some more reading. Is this another
of the common problems run into? Thanks for
any thoughts.

 

[Brian A.]

You do not need to turn off NPF, you need to turn off XP's or any other
FW's installed and running. Having more than 1 FW causes a struggle for
control on who's the real protector. Take it to heart when I say
Symantec's FW is far superior than XP's.

My instructs will be along the NIS lines, so do differently as needed.
Open NPF.
Click Personal Firewall > Configure button > Network tab > Trusted tab >
Add button.
Type in either a Single IP or an IP Range ONLY for the computer/s IP you
trust to have access. If you want to block any click the Restricted tab
and type the machines IP/s you don't want to have access. When done close
out and your set once you've configured the FW on all machines for the
trusted zone.

--

Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

...
[helpful stuff]
...

Thanks. I have some more experimenting to do, and I plan
to get something out of my investment in MS' "Windows XP
Inside Out" by ploughing through the networking section,
which I've only dived into via the index so far. Since
I've been getting some help on the Win98SE group, I'm
going to indulge in that usually bad habit, cross-posting
to there.

The reading was helpful, but when I got to the
pinging section (about which I already had
patient help in the Win98SE group), I resolved
to go through it systematically while trying
some possibly helpful things. One of them turned
out to be the solution to most of my problems,
namely turning off Norton Personal Firewall on
both machines. I now have a functional network
for the important tasks of accessing the old
machine's files and using its printer from the
new machine.

Thanks again to the several people who have
helped.

I'll need to wrestle with Norton Personal
Firewall some, so that I don't have to keep
turning it off to network and on to use the
Internet.

One function doesn't work yet, though. To
access the new (WinXP) machine from the old
one, I'm told I need a password. But I don't
have a password logon on the new machine, so
how am I supposed to supply one? Nothing
obvious comes up on Help: OTOH, the book may
help with some more reading. Is this another
of the common problems run into? Thanks for
any thoughts.

 

[Anthony Buckland]

You do not need to turn off NPF, you need to turn off XP's or any other
FW's installed and running. Having more than 1 FW causes a struggle for
control on who's the real protector. Take it to heart when I say
Symantec's FW is far superior than XP's.

My instructs will be along the NIS lines, so do differently as needed.
Open NPF.
Click Personal Firewall > Configure button > Network tab > Trusted tab >
Add button.
Type in either a Single IP or an IP Range ONLY for the computer/s IP you
trust to have access. If you want to block any click the Restricted tab
and type the machines IP/s you don't want to have access. When done
close out and your set once you've configured the FW on all machines for
the trusted zone.

Thanks. And it didn't take long to find out about the problem of
accessing WinXP from the Win98SE machine.
Local Security Settings
Local Policies
Security Options
Limit local account use of blank passwords
to console logon only
is Enabled
Now I have to ponder whether to switch to password access or to
disable the security setting. Unless it opens some possibility of
attack from the Net, probably the latter.

 

[Anthony Buckland]

Thanks. And it didn't take long to find out about the problem of
accessing WinXP from the Win98SE machine.
Local Security Settings
Local Policies
Security Options
Limit local account use of blank passwords
to console logon only
is Enabled
Now I have to ponder whether to switch to password access or to
disable the security setting. Unless it opens some possibility of
attack from the Net, probably the latter.

Turning off the security setting didn't do the trick, so I
switched to password access, which did.

And finally, the whole firewall problem vanished when I
deinstalled the Norton suite and installed Zone Alarm
instead. The network is now working just fine. It's
interesting, I guess, that my 2003 Norton stuff on the
Win98SE machine was easily convinced to let the network
run -- the problem was the 2005 Norton suite on the new
WinXP machine.

Thanks again for the assistance.

 

[Brian A.]

That setting should be enabled.

Turning off the security setting didn't do the trick, so I
switched to password access, which did.

And finally, the whole firewall problem vanished when I
deinstalled the Norton suite and installed Zone Alarm
instead. The network is now working just fine. It's
interesting, I guess, that my 2003 Norton stuff on the
Win98SE machine was easily convinced to let the network
run -- the problem was the 2005 Norton suite on the new
WinXP machine.

Which points to the NIS settings starting with the FW Network Trusted zone. Also in the FW configuration > Advanced tab > General button, a rule may be set that is blocking the other machine/s access, this did cause an issue once for my network.

Other possibilities could be Intrusion Protection and/or Privacy configuration settings.

The only mention I see anywhere involving NPF is your disabling it, nothing involved in the config/settings I brought to your attention. I use NIS on all of my networked machines that I primarily use. Win98SE machines have NIS2004 and XP Pro/Home have NIS2005 without any networking issue.


--

Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

 

[Anthony Buckland]

...


Which points to the NIS settings starting with the FW Network Trusted zone. Also in the FW configuration > Advanced tab > General button, a rule may be set that is blocking the other machine/s access, this did cause an issue once for my network.

Other possibilities could be Intrusion Protection and/or Privacy configuration settings.

The only mention I see anywhere involving NPF is your disabling it, nothing involved in the config/settings I brought to your attention. I use NIS on all of my networked machines that I primarily use. Win98SE machines have NIS2004 and XP Pro/Home have NIS2005 without any networking issue.

Sorry, I didn't go into details, but I spent considerable time wrestling
with the trusted zone, to no avail. Your help was appreciated, and was
immediately effective on the Win98SE machine. Yes, I was disabling
NPF on the WinXP machine as a stopgap measure so I could print from the
other machine while fiddling, but I continued work on the Trusted Zone.
Maybe I did miss some other setting. I'd intended switching XP to Zone
Alarm eventually when my subscription ran out because of Norton's "you
can't talk to us" policy, and decided it might as well be tried now
to see if it helped. It certainly did, and now I'll never know if
another rule in NPF was interfering.