Networking advice courtesy of MS-MVP Malke: File/printer sharing Excellent, thorough, yet easy to understand article about File/Printer Sharing in Vista. Includes details about sharing printers as well as files and folders: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb727037.aspx For XP, start by running the Network Setup Wizard on all machines (see caveat in Item A below). Problems sharing files between computers on a network are generally caused by 1) a misconfigured firewall or overlooked firewall (including a stateful firewall in a VPN); or 2) inadvertently running two firewalls such as the built-in Windows Firewall and a third-party firewall; and/or 3) not having identical user accounts and passwords on all Workgroup machines; 4) trying to create shares where the operating system does not permit it. A. Configure firewalls on all machines to allow the Local Area Network (LAN) traffic as trusted. With Windows Firewall, this means allowing File/Printer Sharing on the Exceptions tab. Normally running the Network Setup Wizard on XP will take care of this for those machines.The only "gotcha" is that this will turn on the XPSP2 Windows Firewall. If you aren't running a third-party firewall or have an antivirus with "Internet Worm Protection" (like Norton 2006/07) which acts as a firewall, then you're fine. With third-party firewalls, I usually configure the LAN allowance with an IP range. Ex. would be 192.168.1.0-192.168.1.254. Obviously you would substitute your correct subnet. Do not run more than one firewall. DO NOT TURN OFF FIREWALLS; CONFIGURE THEM CORRECTLY. B. For ease of organization, put all computers in the same Workgroup. This is done from the System applet in Control Panel, Computer Name tab. C. Create matching user accounts and passwords on all machines. You do not need to be logged into the same account on all machines and the passwords assigned to each user account can be different; the accounts/passwords just need to exist and match on all machines. DO NOT NEGLECT TO CREATE PASSWORDS, EVEN IF ONLY SIMPLE ONES. If you wish a machine to boot directly to the Desktop (into one particular user's account) for convenience, you can do this. The instructions at this link work for both XP and Vista: Configure Windows to Automatically Login (MVP Ramesh) - http://windowsxp.mvps.org/Autologon.htm D. If one or more of the computers is XP Pro or Media Center, turn off Simple File Sharing (Folder Options>View tab). E. Create shares as desired. XP Home does not permit sharing of users' home directories or Program Files, but you can share folders inside those directories. A better choice is to simply use the Shared Documents folder. See the first link above for details about Vista sharing. F. After you have file sharing working (and have tested this by exchanging a file between all machines), if you want to share a printer connected locally to one of your computers, share it out from that machine. Then go to the printer mftr.'s website and download the latest drivers for the correct operating system(s). Install them on the target machine(s). The printer should be seen during the installation routine. If it is not, install the drivers and then use the Add Printer Wizard. In some instances, certain printers need to be installed as Local printers but that is outside of this response. -- Lem -- MS-MVP To the moon and back with 2K words of RAM and 36K words of ROM. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm
Networking advice courtesy of MS-MVP Malke: File/printer sharing Excellent, thorough, yet easy to understand article about File/Printer Sharing in Vista. Includes details about sharing printers as well as files and folders: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb727037.aspx For XP, start by running the Network Setup Wizard on all machines (see caveat in Item A below). Problems sharing files between computers on a network are generally caused by 1) a misconfigured firewall or overlooked firewall (including a stateful firewall in a VPN); or 2) inadvertently running two firewalls such as the built-in Windows Firewall and a third-party firewall; and/or 3) not having identical user accounts and passwords on all Workgroup machines; 4) trying to create shares where the operating system does not permit it. A. Configure firewalls on all machines to allow the Local Area Network (LAN) traffic as trusted. With Windows Firewall, this means allowing File/Printer Sharing on the Exceptions tab. Normally running the Network Setup Wizard on XP will take care of this for those machines.The only "gotcha" is that this will turn on the XPSP2 Windows Firewall. If you aren't running a third-party firewall or have an antivirus with "Internet Worm Protection" (like Norton 2006/07) which acts as a firewall, then you're fine. With third-party firewalls, I usually configure the LAN allowance with an IP range. Ex. would be 192.168.1.0-192.168.1.254. Obviously you would substitute your correct subnet. Do not run more than one firewall. DO NOT TURN OFF FIREWALLS; CONFIGURE THEM CORRECTLY. B. For ease of organization, put all computers in the same Workgroup. This is done from the System applet in Control Panel, Computer Name tab. C. Create matching user accounts and passwords on all machines. You do not need to be logged into the same account on all machines and the passwords assigned to each user account can be different; the accounts/passwords just need to exist and match on all machines. DO NOT NEGLECT TO CREATE PASSWORDS, EVEN IF ONLY SIMPLE ONES. If you wish a machine to boot directly to the Desktop (into one particular user's account) for convenience, you can do this. The instructions at this link work for both XP and Vista: Configure Windows to Automatically Login (MVP Ramesh) - http://windowsxp.mvps.org/Autologon.htm D. If one or more of the computers is XP Pro or Media Center, turn off Simple File Sharing (Folder Options>View tab). E. Create shares as desired. XP Home does not permit sharing of users' home directories or Program Files, but you can share folders inside those directories. A better choice is to simply use the Shared Documents folder. See the first link above for details about Vista sharing. F. After you have file sharing working (and have tested this by exchanging a file between all machines), if you want to share a printer connected locally to one of your computers, share it out from that machine. Then go to the printer mftr.'s website and download the latest drivers for the correct operating system(s). Install them on the target machine(s). The printer should be seen during the installation routine. If it is not, install the drivers and then use the Add Printer Wizard. In some instances, certain printers need to be installed as Local printers but that is outside of this response. -- Lem -- MS-MVP To the moon and back with 2K words of RAM and 36K words of ROM. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm
Yea, I read something about that in all my searching for an answer and I believe I have all firewalls concerned straightened out. I've got Norton on both machines. Thanks! Paula
Yea, I read something about that in all my searching for an answer and I believe I have all firewalls concerned straightened out. I've got Norton on both machines. Thanks! Paula
You've got a lot for me to do here, Lem. One question I do have is on the running of two firewalls. Which firewall should I run, Windows or Norton? I currently have them both running -- I think I'll turn off Norton and see what happens. I also made sure I had to duplicate users and created identical passwords for them. I hadn't had passwords on them previously since they're home computers and I'm really the only person that uses them anyway. I will go over the rest of this list and let you know how it goes... thanks again for you help!! Paula
You've got a lot for me to do here, Lem. One question I do have is on the running of two firewalls. Which firewall should I run, Windows or Norton? I currently have them both running -- I think I'll turn off Norton and see what happens. I also made sure I had to duplicate users and created identical passwords for them. I hadn't had passwords on them previously since they're home computers and I'm really the only person that uses them anyway. I will go over the rest of this list and let you know how it goes... thanks again for you help!! Paula
If you follow Malke's advice, you should be able to get file and printer sharing to work. If you still have trouble, check out the following web page. If you answer all the questions there, it should pinpoint the source of your network problems: http://winhlp.com/wxnet.htm Yes, disable the Norton firewall (some folks in this newsgroup go as far as to suggest removing all Norton products entirely, but you can decide about that later). I don't know if the Norton "suites" (Norton 360 and Norton Internet Security) incorporate "Internet Worm Protection" into their firewalls or if they have a firewall in addition to IWP. In the latter case, you'd have to disable both. -- Lem -- MS-MVP To the moon and back with 2K words of RAM and 36K words of ROM. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm
If you follow Malke's advice, you should be able to get file and printer sharing to work. If you still have trouble, check out the following web page. If you answer all the questions there, it should pinpoint the source of your network problems: http://winhlp.com/wxnet.htm Yes, disable the Norton firewall (some folks in this newsgroup go as far as to suggest removing all Norton products entirely, but you can decide about that later). I don't know if the Norton "suites" (Norton 360 and Norton Internet Security) incorporate "Internet Worm Protection" into their firewalls or if they have a firewall in addition to IWP. In the latter case, you'd have to disable both. -- Lem -- MS-MVP To the moon and back with 2K words of RAM and 36K words of ROM. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm
I know there are a lot of people that don't like Norton. I've used it for years, in fact it's the only one I've ever used, and really haven't had any problems with it. Just gotta get those settings right! The version on the desktop is older and actually easier to configure than the newer version on the laptop seems to be. And yes, the newer version doesn't mention a firewall, just IWP. One nagging question that plagues me, what makes a network go in and out like they do? There may not even be an easy answer for that. It just seems like they go in and out on a whim! Thanks, Paula
I know there are a lot of people that don't like Norton. I've used it for years, in fact it's the only one I've ever used, and really haven't had any problems with it. Just gotta get those settings right! The version on the desktop is older and actually easier to configure than the newer version on the laptop seems to be. And yes, the newer version doesn't mention a firewall, just IWP. One nagging question that plagues me, what makes a network go in and out like they do? There may not even be an easy answer for that. It just seems like they go in and out on a whim! Thanks, Paula
