Unable to re-establish home network

I have a small home network, 3 PCs all running Windows XP, SP2 and current with all updates. I have a Linksys 4-port wireless router. PC #1 was connected directly to the router while PCs #2 & #3 where wireless. Everything worked correctly; file sharing, print sharing, and internet connection. All 3 computers could see each other and could map to individual folder on each.

We recently bought a new computer (PC #4) and made this our main PC. This is now connected directly to the router and PC #1 is now wireless. The problem I have is that PCs #1 & #4 cannot see any of the other computers on the network. PCs #2 & #3 can still map to each other but cannot map to #1 or #4, although both show up in the 'Map Network Drive' list. It's just that when you expand them in the list, no folders are shown so there is nothing to map to. PCs #1 & #4 only see the workgroup name in the list. When it is expanded, nothing shows.

I have tried many of the fixes listed in this forum as well as some of the sites mentioned, all without success. I'm sure it is something small and stupid that I've missed but I've ran out of things to try. I have been working on this for over a week so I am hoping someone here can push me in the right direction.

Thanks for any help/suggestions.

 

XP Home, or XP Pro? All the same or mixed?

 

TJ-IT, all PCs are using XP Home. However, I was finally able to solve the problem. When I originally setup my home network, I specified an allow range of IP address that were to be trusted by Kerio Firewall. This range was basically 1-3 since I only had 3 PCs. No need to allow any others. When I got the new computer and changed the original main computer to a wireless connection, both got IP addresses outside the specified range. Since I copied the Kerio configuration to the new PC, both of them were blocked. I updated the range to reflect the new IP addresses and now everything works.

 

compdude
You can pick up some additional protection via your router
using the "Reserve IP" option. This option requires the unique MAC address for each network card you allow to connect to your network. When any computer requests an IP address into the network, the router first checks it's MAC address. If it finds a match, it then assigns a reserved IP address associated with that MAC address.

 

Dennis,

Thanks for the suggestion. I will give it a try.