Finicky File Sharing

I set up a tiny 100Mbps network in december with a XP Home box, an 98 First Edition box and a Cat5e crossover cable. The NIC is fine and has the latest drivers. I've been using ICS without a hitch at a nice clip (125Kb speed out of 735Kb max bandwidth from modem). My newer HP Pavilion with XP can access my Aptiva's hard drive with ease and I've transfered a 762MB file in about 10 minutes. But when I tried accessing my new computer's HD, "Bluemachine" was not there as an icon. Interestingly enough, after I ran the network setup wizard on the new computer, the icon was there but I got an access denied when I clicked on it. But I could write onto the Aptiva's hard drive so I dropped netsetup.exe on the desktop. After running through the wizard and 2 reboots, I tried it again only to see the icon had dissapeared!

I have:

-Run network setup wizard on each computer
-Installed a NIC on the older computer
-Plugged in neccesary cords, power cables, etc.
-Created an account called "David" on the older computer and made "Microsoft Network Logon" the default logon

Any suggestions of what I missed?

 

I hate setup wizards...

You never KNOW what they are going to do, you can only assume.

Typically the IP addresses will be dynamically assigned. So you never know what the IP address is of a machine. You are better off statically assigning IP addresses to your machines. That way you always know what the addresses are.

I also like to add the IP addresses and names of the computers in the HOSTS file. It not only helps the computers to find each other, but it also gives you some documentation.

In your case, you will want to make sure that NetBIOS is enabled over TCP/IP on both computers. Make sure that you can ping the computers by name and by IP address. Also read this article on 98/XP file sharing.

If you are going to statically assign your IP addresses, make sure that they are in a non-routable subnet. 192.168.xxx.xxx is commonly used. Here is an article on that subject.

 

OK, well after using cmd.exe and command.com to pull up the ping command, both computers have the other as 192.168.0.1, 192.168.0.2 gets nothing. Where is netBIOS? I've searched the networks control panel and only found the logons, the network type (netBEUI, TCP/IP) and no NetBIOS.
I had an somewhat functioning network before I had to use "recovery" to fix my new computer. For that I didn't have to configure any setting besides running the wizard. Obviously this is a case where XP "security" is hampering file sharing so what now?

 

NetBIOS is enabled by default.

On an XP machine, you can find NetBIOS in the properties of TCP/IP. There is a check box in the WINS configuration of TCP/IP that says "Enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP ". You can find the WINS configuration by clicking on the Advanced button.

I am not certain where it is on a 98, but I believe that there is a NetBIOS tab in the TCP/IP properties.

I hate that wizard on XP. I made the mistake of using it once and I lost my "Network Connections" control panel. Can you access and use the "Network Connections" control panel?

 

On the 98 machine it will help to fill some extra info in on the DNS Server tab in your TCP/IP settings. Under this page (i am doing this from my head at the moment) you have Host which is the name of your PC (not the log in name, the PC name) Domain which i usually fill in the domain of the ISP used for internet (eg abc.net.au (no www or http stuff)), you have DNS Search Order, which is the primary and secondary DNS server IP addresses provided by your ISP, and Domain Suffix, which is the same as the domain setting at the top. Anyway main thing is it likes this page to be filled out sometimes. Auto doesnt always work. True filling this page in is more important to internet sharing with 98 or ME machines than file sharing.

The next section may be all you need to do as well:

Also it helps if you create an account on the XP machine with the same username and password as the 98 machine uses to log on. If the 98 machine has no username or password at startup, give it one.

Once you do that in XP, if you use the welcome screen to log into windows, you will have this new account as an option to log in when you start the XP machine. Of course you wont use this login to log into XP, so if you want it hidden, you have to go to User Accounts in control panel and then the option "Change the way users log into the machine" and take the tick out of "Use the Welcome Screen ". After that you will get a log in box instead to log into XP, with you username showing, waiting for a password.

Aside from that you need to check the permissions set on the shared folder you are trying to access on the XP machine if not using Simple File Sharing, that the user has rights to access it. If using Simple file sharing you wont have a Permissions button in the sharing area for folders that are shared. This i can explain better if you think you need it.

And of course importantly Check that both computers are using the same Workgroup name. For more info on how to find any of the above settings, ask.


Hope this made sense!