Network Neighborhood from Win98SE and WinXP Home

[JoelS]

I have setup a wireless network for a friend that has a Dell system running WinXP Home and a Compaq laptop running Win98 Second Edition.

The laptop uses a Cisco Aironet 350 wireless adapter to connect to a Cisco Wireless Access Point. The access point is connected to a Linksys Etherfast Cable/DSL Router. The Dell is also hooked to the router. The router is then connected to a a cable modem that connects to ATT cable. I think this accurately describes the physical connections.

Basic problem: Neither the WinXP nor the Win98 systems can see each other in the network.

Things that DO work:

- both PCs can access the internet just fine; they each use DHCP to setup network access thru the linksys router. The only protocol loaded on either machine is TCP/IP.

- both PCs can ping each other's IP and the gateway.

- I created a printer share on the WinXP system. I can print to the shared printer from the Win98 system. I had to manually enter the network path as //PCname/printername (I'm not at my friends house so don't remember the exact names).

It seems strange to me that Win98 can resolve the path to the printer on the WinXP system after I have given it the name under the printers properties dialog, but I get an error when trying to view network neighborhood from Explorer. I don't get errors when going My Network Places on the WinXP system, but the only PC that is shown is the WinXP system itself.

Anyone have any ideas of things to try? I have a very similar network setup at my house that has 2 WinXP systems, a Win2K laptop, and 2 Win98 systems; everything works as expected here so its frustrating that I can't get my friends system up to snuff. Both PCs are in the same workgroup and have unique computer names. All critical updates from Microsoft update have been installed on all systems.

Thanks in advance for any words of advice.

[Greenstead]

Well, here's my checklist you might run thro.
- All PCs have TCP/IP installed.
- All PCs have Netbios over TCP/IP enabled.
- All PCs have the same workgroup.
- All PCs have a unique computer name.
- ALL PCs have network shares defined directly under c:.
- ALL NICS are on the same subnet (typically IP 192.168.0.* subnet 255.255.255.0).
- MS Client and file & printer sharing are checked on each NIC.
- All NICs have their node type = broadcast (check with Ipconfig).
- XP's ICF firewall is permanently disabled.
- All 3rd party firewalls are disabled, uninstalled and deleted (until connection is working).

It sounds like a name resolution problem. Pay attention to the node type. If its peer-peer that might explain the problem.

Also check there are no bridges in XP. Also ICS is not installed.

You say you use the DHCP service in the Linksys. Check there is not also a DHCP server in the Access Point that is on.

[JoelS]

Thanks for the reply!

I know that I did not install Netbios (same as netbeui?) so I'll go add that. I just found the Netbeui stuff on the XP cd. Just curious, but why is it recommended? On my own home network the only protocol I have loaded on all systems is TCP/IP. I have a mix of Win98SE and WinXP home and all the machines can share resources and view each other in the Network without a problem (have a few sharing issues with my wifes work laptop that has Win2K on it, but I need to do research in that area before asking intelligent questions).

I never looked at the broadcast type so will do that next time I'm over there. If the broadcast type needs to be changed, can that be changed from the Properties dialog boxes? I'll look...

I know I didn't do anything specifically to activate the ICF firewall, but I'll have to check to make sure that it didn't get loaded by some wizard automajically. I did install the Sygate Personal Firewall on the Windows XP machine, but we were having the problem before that. I'll remove it though until I get his resolved (good suggestion!).

I'll verify again that only one DHCP server is active, but I'm pretty sure I already looked at that (I seem to remember that the Cisco Access Point didn't even have a built-in DHCP server but I'll double check to be certain).

Thanks a ton for the reply and I'll post here on the board after I go take another look at the installation.

Joel Stanford

[Greenstead]

OK - good luck.

btw
1. Node type in XP can only be changed by either the DHCP server or over-riden by a new entry inserted into the windows registry. There is no windows method to change it that I know of.
(I have an auto update to do this on the registry if needed I can post here).

2. ICS and Sygate are incompatible.

3. Sygate can stop LAN communications. Go to the Sygate forums and ask for assistance.