Problem seeing PCs on home network

I have set up a home network with 4 PCs. I thought everything was working fine, but I find now that one PC can't see any of the other PCs on the network, but all of the other can see it.

By "see" I am refering to what I can see via the Network Neighborhood. If I click on Network Neighborhood from the "problem PC ", and then of "Entire Network ", I get the message: "Unable to browse the network. The network is not accessible ".

If I click Network Neighborhood on any of the other PCs, I can see the "problem PC ", and I can even access files in the directories I set up as being shared.

Also, I can ping all of the other PCs from the problem PC.

Host PC is running WMe. Others are running W98.

Any ideas on how I can fix this?

Thanks.

 

A bit of info on system setup might be helpful. Router? Firewall? Antivirus? Connection type.........ethernet, wireless, phone lines? OS? Settings you may have tried already and current settings? All of this may be vital to determining the problem.

 

System info? Settings? Not sure what all you mean. I'll try to give you some. Please let me know what else you'd like to know.

What I call the "host" PC is running WMe and ICS (Internet Connection Sharing). Basically, it's a serving as arouter. The other PCs can get out onto the Internet through it. The way it gets onto the Internet is via a network that someone in the mobile home park where I live set up for some of us.

Currently, I don't have any firewall or antivirus S/W running on the host PC (although I will eventually have them).

The client PCs in the home network are all connected to an ethenet switch, and the host PC is connected to it, too. One of the client PCs is running W98se, and the other two (including the "problem PC ") are running W98.

I haven't changed any settings because they all look correct to me, but I'm sure I must be over looking something All of the PCs are in the same "workgroup ", they all (including the "problem PC ") can get out onto the Internet, and they all (including the "problem PC ") can ping one another.

The 3 client PCs all have the same gateway address which is the "home side" (ethernet card) IP address of the host PC.

The only problem with the entire home network is that the "problem PC" just can't see the other PCs in the workgroup (but the others can see it).

I should also mention, though, that I don't think the Internet side has anything to do with my problem. If pull the cable off of my wireless device, obviously none of my PCs can get out onto the Internet, but they can all still "see" one another (via Network Neighborhood) except for the one "problem PC" which can't see the others.

Here's a table of the settings:

PC Gateway IP address Subnet mask
host* 192.168.100.100 192.168.100.n 255.255.255.0
host** none 192.168.0.1 255.255.255.0
client 1 192.168.0.1 192.168.0.2 255.255.255.0
client 2 192.168.0.1 192.168.0.3 255.255.255.0
client 3 192.168.0.1 192.168.0.4 255.255.255.0

(client 3 is the "problem PC ")
The workgroup name on all 4 PCs is "RNG ".

*wireless "card "/tranmitter/receiver (The IP address, gateway, subnet mask and DNS servers are assigned by the wireless host via DHCP)

**ethernet card (the "home side" of the home network) DNS is disabled on this card, but...

...DNS is enabled on the 3 client PCs and the DNS host is set to the name of the host PC of my network. DNS is not running on my host PC, it just passed the DNS requests from the client PCs on to the Internet DNS servers.

 

Thats exactly the information he was asking for. And it all looks fine from here.

You REALLY need to get AV and firewall running on all the PCs. For right now, the ICF (internet connection firewall) that comes as part of ICS is lots better than nothing. And any of several free AV packages would do you fine.

As to the problem PC, you may have just had the networking load go slightly bad. First thing I'd try would be to get a fresh start on that PC.

Safe mode boot and device manager then remove all the networking entries including the hardware NIC.

Shut down and remove the NIC.

Boot up and shut down again. Then reinsert the NIC (good idea to take a pencil eraser and clean the contacts while you have the card out) and start up to load networking back on the PC.

Pretty good chance that will get you back to normal operations. If not, we'll at least be starting with known clean networking installed on the PC.

 

Rats, I was afraid you might say that. That was what I was going to try next, but what a pain. I was just hoping you might see something I missed.

Thanks for your help.

 

OK, I did the things that "Newt" suggested, but the problem continues. However, I have a suspicion as to what might be the problem, but I'll need a little bit of help.

After removing the network adapter via the Device Manager, and removng the NIC, and reinstalling it, and the drivers, and still having the same problem afterwards, I thought perhaps I might need to run the Home Networking Wizard. I created the necessary floppy on the home network's host PC, and installed in on the PC in question. When I rebooted it, it wanted me to log onto my network. I was not asked to do that on the other PCs on my network, so I suspect that might be where the problem lies. Also, the network login window contained some references to a username and domain from a job I had a few years ago.

So, what do I do? I can't just enter the "correct" username and domain because I never setup any "users" on my home networking domain. And, as I said, I was not asked to log onto the network from my other PCs, they just are able to see the home network after booting. What do I need to change on the PC in question?

Thanks.

 

Reads like you and I have the saem problem. That is the same message that I get on two machine. But the XP machine cansee them all.

See my post. Lan Problems.

BTW.

I just tried and I can copy files from one of the problem units but I can not copy files to it. It says I do not have the proper permissions.

BillyBob

 

home networking domain

For clarity, you cannot have a domain at home since that would require an NT4/2000/2003 running the Server OS version to act as domain controller. You have a workgroup. May sound nit-picking but the behave in very different ways so you do not want 'domain' advice.

Not sure at this point exactly what is happening but lets get your network back to basics and see if things work.

• Disable DHCP.
• On the host PC, disable the NIC that connects to the outside world. Leave it in place but just disable so it will be easy to put back into service.
• Manually set each active NIC with IP address and subnet mask only. Leave the host at 192.168.0.1 and make the others 192.168.0.20, 192.168.0.30, 192.168.0.40 with all having a netmask of 255.255.255.0 and nothing in any other places. No DNS, no gateway, nothing.
• Change the workgroup name to RNG2 (just to ensure a fresh start).
• Create a file named hosts (no extension) and copy it to each PC to the windows folder. Replace any file by that name that exists now. Contents as follows (but use the real PC names rather than the made up ones I have). Use all the name variations for caps vs small case. And create the file in notepad or some other text editor rather than any sort of word processor.
  
  127.0.0.1 localhost
  192.168.0.1 John john JOHN
  192.168.0.20 Nancy nancy NANCY
  192.168.0.30 Fred fred FRED
  192.168.0.40 Extra extra EXTRA
  
• Make sure Client for Microsoft Networking is loaded along with File & Printer Sharing.
• Create a folder on each named share and then share it as stuff
• Place a file in each share folder that has the same name as the PC. No matter what kind of file so john.txt, nancy.txt, etc. will do fine.

Once thats all done and the PCs are up & running, test things with a ping. From a command window (start~run~command) on each,
ping localhost and if that works, ping each of the other systems by ip and then by name.

If all the ping testing works, then test the shares by use of start~run~full-share-name so that from John you would do
start~run~\\nancy\stuff and look for it to open an explorer window so you can see the folder contents which should be nancy.txt or whatever you put in. Then do the same with the other two so you will know John either does or does not connect properly to the other workgroup members.

Post back with your results.

 

Thanks for your help and info, Newt. I fixed the problem, but I did not do all of the things you suggested. Actually, I didn't do any of them. I did think they were all perfectly OK things to do, though, it's just that I had a gut feeling that I still would have the problem after doing those things. However, I was able verify all of the things you suggested I check after I would have done the things you suggested. So, thank you.

I did find that under "Client for Microsoft Networks" that the "Logon to Windows NT domain" box was checked. I unchecked that, but that still did not fix the problem.

The way I finally fixed the problem was to go to Start --> Logoff. When I logged off, I eventually got another login [to Microsoft Network] window. It had "rlambert" as the username. I just hit <Enter> in response to the password, I got my Desktop, and I now can see the other PCs in my Network Neighborhood.


But, please enlighten me. Where did that "rlambert" username come from? I don't remember ever setting up any "users ". Where/how could I find that username now if I wanted to "do something" with it?

Thanks.

 

The only way I know of to get a username is to enter one. 98/ME make it almost too simple to do though. Load Clients for Microsoft Networks. Get the login box, enter a username, leave the password blank, and you'll be logged on from that point forward without seeing anything unless you hold down the SHIFT key while starting the PC to force a logon screen.

The username will be part of at least one registry entry and the password will be stored in a local password file database. But without knowing 'what' you want to do, it's hard to give more information.

 

OK, starting to "get the picture ", now. Thanks. Did not necssarily want to do anything with that "username ". As I think about it, I suspect that was a username I had at a job a few years ago. They must have set up some kind of dialup into the network for me.

The info about the "where" might be useful, though, for future reference. Where is the password database file? Suppose you had a username with a password that was forgotten. Could you delete the username's entry in the database to clear the password?

Thanks.

 

here is the information about windows 9x/me

Network login information files...

are *.pwl files

Do a search for these files,



gobbles