what's in a (computer) name?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Peter G
  • Start date Start date
P

Peter G

I've just installed XP on a seperate drive and succesfully reconnected to my
small network but I called the computer "FredXP" instead of "Fred" (on
Win98SE) and now my other computers can't access it - how do I change it (or
should I?) back to "Fred"?
 
Peter said:
I've just installed XP on a separate drive and successfully
reconnected to my small network but I called the computer "FredXP"
instead of "Fred" (on Win98SE) and now my other computers can't
access it - how do I change it (or should I?) back to "Fred"?
Click to expand...

The name should not matter, you should be able to connect to it with the new
name.

What protocol are you using to connect? Just TCP/IP? If so, can you ping
the XP machine from your other machines (using the IP address)? Can you
connect to the other machines from the XP machine? Is the firewall OFF or
configured to allow file and printer sharing on the XP machine?
 
"Peter G" said in news:[email protected]:
I've just installed XP on a seperate drive and succesfully
reconnected to my small network but I called the computer "FredXP"
instead of "Fred" (on Win98SE) and now my other computers can't
access it - how do I change it (or should I?) back to "Fred"?
Click to expand...

Windows XP doesn't need NetBEUI anymore to find other hosts. In fact,
NetBEUI, although available, is not installed and bound to your
connectoids by default. Windows XP now uses its Computer Browser
service to find other hosts. It can up to 12 minutes before the info
gets updated when a host is added to the intranetwork or its name
changed (the KB article below seems to also indicate it could take even
longer to flush out the old hostname).

Description of the Microsoft Computer Browser Service
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=188001
 
Back
Top