[TrashMan]

Hrm...12 people applied for the job, only 3 from the general area.

They didn't have a system administrator until know, but rather had to call a specific company that charged  them every time one of theirs came to the field. And the company is sloppy from what I hear.

AFAIK, they don't even have system images...

[Bob-san]

Well, propose your plan. When they realize that your computers will be the least sloppy in the industry, they'll be happy to hire you.

[Colonol Dekker]

Seven P's. Never forget them or reality and clients will bite you in the arse.

[TrashMan]

Hehe...a friend of mine just came to me with a funny problem. Listen to this one:

He has two computers he connected into a LAN. He can play games on them (the games recognize the LAN and see other computers), but strangely, windows don't see the other computer in My Network Places, and can't send files over... But he can play Lan games. He has Win XP SP3 in case you're wondering.

He swears firewalls are down and IP adresses are configured properly.

[Colonol Dekker]

Hehe...a friend of mine just came to me with a funny problem. Listen to this one:

He has two computers he connected into a LAN. He can play games on them (the games recognize the LAN and see other computers), but strangely, windows don't see the other computer in My Network Places, and can't send files over... But he can play Lan games. He has Win XP SP3 in case you're wondering.

He swears firewalls are down and IP adresses are configured properly.

That happens with me and my brothers PC, we play Dawn of War homeworld and even Defcon just fine.

But no shared folders etc show (both are running vista 32 bit) all i did was plug the belkin network lead in. Windows did the rest.. Sugestions please. quick about it too, i'm off home in two hours

[redsniper]

Man, I've tried many times to transfer files between my laptop and desktop by networking them like that, and they never see each other either.

[Bob-san]

Make sure they have the same networking settings. Anyways: I've had a similar problem but LAN games and VNC still work properly. If you're behind a router, you're basically safe so no need for firewalls in most cases.

[TrashMan]

Seven P's. Never forget them or reality and clients will bite you in the arse.

Eh? Seven P's?

[Einstine909]

Worst comes to worst, you can always type the other computers ip address into the address bar of an explorer window(not a web browser). If you don't know the ip, open up the command prompt on the other computer and type ipconfig, that will give you the ip. I swear by this method myself, as some vista computers don't like to show up on the network. also when every computer has a static ip, you don't have to go through that slow network places folder...

[Mars]

I could never get Vista to recognize XP computers, even with Microsoft's patch

[TrashMan]

Worst comes to worst, you can always type the other computers ip address into the address bar of an explorer window(not a web browser). If you don't know the ip, open up the command prompt on the other computer and type ipconfig, that will give you the ip. I swear by this method myself, as some vista computers don't like to show up on the network. also when every computer has a static ip, you don't have to go through that slow network places folder...

Please, give me some credit here. I am a certified computer engineer.
If I couldn't find a computers IP adress I should shoot myself right away.

[Ghostavo]

Worst comes to worst, you can always type the other computers ip address into the address bar of an explorer window(not a web browser). If you don't know the ip, open up the command prompt on the other computer and type ipconfig, that will give you the ip. I swear by this method myself, as some vista computers don't like to show up on the network. also when every computer has a static ip, you don't have to go through that slow network places folder...

Please, give me some credit here. I am a certified computer engineer.
If I couldn't find a computers IP adress I should shoot myself right away.

But Dekker is a certified drunk and he asked the question too. 

[pecenipicek]

more often than not the computers have to be in the same Workgroup or Domain. and a folder needs to be shared. if its the standard shared folder of win xp, shoot yourself.


now, sharing folders between linux and xp, now thats a hurdle. also, i have to say, i hate SMB(samba) stuff

[Spicious]

If you're behind a router, you're basically safe so no need for firewalls in most cases.

Only if everyone on your internal network is trustworthy, which is essentially never.

[Bob-san]

If you're behind a router, you're basically safe so no need for firewalls in most cases.

Only if everyone on your internal network is trustworthy, which is essentially never.

If it's yourself... anyways: the only thing I really do with my home network is VNC into systems lacking keyboards or monitors.

[KewlToyZ]

UltraVNC works for XP/Vista and its free. Nice little app.
As far as the network folders and shares between systems,
it should just be a matter of creating the active directory share permissions on each system for each user.
Make sure they are on the same workgroup.
Without a domain controller though sharing printers is a pain between Vista & XP.
I found it worked easy when I turned off password protected sharing on Vista,
but then you can no longer get DNS server names resolved on a VPN for work related connections.
Its a balancing act.

[TrashMan]

That pal of mine sez that neither of the two computers shows up at all on the other one. It's like they don't exist. I really ought to drop by and take a look.

[KewlToyZ]

Make sure they are using the right ports on their hub/switch for starters.
Some have two ports that actually combine as the uplink or bridged connection and may be the source of the failure.
This means making sure they are connected to networking ports and the web is the only uplink.
The other is making sure they are using the same type cat5 to connect, if they are cat5b or cat5e it could be problematic.
It sounds like they may almost be able to communicate via IPX but not TCIP.

They may have a switch so they can all connect to the web but the switch hasn't been or can't enabled for network sharing
(i doubt the latter but I have had a one like this).

If they attempted to setup the system to connect through one PC's shared web connection it can cause issues as well.
They should all connect directly to the web through the switch being used as the main firewall. (check the switches security settings)

[TrashMan]

From what he's told me he linked the PC's directly .. lol
No hub, no switch. Just the cable.

[pecenipicek]

workgroups. tell him to set both pc's as the same workgroup.