Problem getting Windows 2000 / Windows XP machines to network

I recently tried to enable WEP encryption on my wireless network but I then found 2 of the computers were no longer receiving an IP address from my router.

I have a Belkin F5D7630-4A router, 1 machine with Windows XP SP2, and 2 machines with Windows 2000 SP4. The XP machine is linked by ethernet to the router, the 2000 machines are on wi-fi.

I then changed the router back to an open network, but I still get the same problem. The XP machine is configured to use DHCP, as are the ones running 2000.

For some reason when do I ipconfig /all on the 2000 machines it doesn't find a default gateway or an IP address, it is just blank. This shouldn't happen with DHCP normally.

I then go to http://192.168.2.1 which is the routers admin page. All the machines appear on the routers client list. I have set the domain name on the config to the same as the workgroup on the Windows machines. I have set the Windows machines to appear as machine.domain on their network ID.

I have all the machines TCP/IP configuration set to use append primary and parent DNS suffixes, append parent suffixes of primary DNS, register this conections addresses in DNS, and use this connections DNS suffix in DNS registration.

I have manuall set the default gateway on the 2000 machines to 192.168.2.1, but no IP address is appearing in their ipconfig. What's even stranger is that the XP machine can see the 2000 machines in network neighbourhood and browse their shares, but the 2000 machines cant see each other or the XP machine.

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

 

I suppose your network worked fine before you applied the WEP on your router.

What I can sugguest are:

1 Windows system need time to flood the message to every computers as well as the routers.

a) It is not strange that you still could see all the machine on the list of your router's client table when your win2k machine could not connect to it.

b) Are you sure your winXP still could see and share the files in your win2k machines after you found your win2k computers could not get their IP? I believe you could still see it for a while, but how could you sharing the files without the network connection? otherwise, your router should be support microsoft proprietary protocol such as NetBEUI or something other than TCP/IP.


2 When you apply the WEP on your router, there must be a key or passphrase you need to reset the win2k computers wireless network. You did not mention it in your post. Could you make it clear?

 

Yes the XP machine could see the 2000 machines only when I gave the 2000 machines a fixed IP address, DNS servers etc. But even the 2000 machines still can't see the XP machine or each other. I've tried turning on and off every setting in TCP/IP config and still no luck.

I set a passphrase on the wireless network, and that's when the problem started happening. I turned this off, and told all the machines it was an open network and still the problems are occuring.

 

I think some of your settings have gotten corrupted somewhere along the way. I ran into a similar situation when I first set up my wireless, tried to change something after it was set. Ended up just rebuilding the entire set up. I have a Linksys, but there should be a way to set everything up from your hard wired PC to the router and create a small file to download to your other PCs. Also, once you get everything set up and working right, its a good idea to "save" the configuration, should be something in your router's configuration screen to do this. Also check with the router manufacturer's website for any other possible solutions. This tool might help as well, but can only run it on the XP machine:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=914440

 

Thanks for this, will hope it works. Is it the networking wizard that creates a small file for all the other PCs to use?

 

I was referring to the router's set up, but the Windows network set up supports a similar concept.