XP networked to 95 weirdness

Hi,

I have an office network with 3 95 boxes and 1 XP home ed box which was working just fine. Now that I've reinstalled 95 on one of the boxes having trouble with the LAN.

The 95 box can see the XP box, but the XP box can't see that one 95 box. Everything else appears to be working correctly. I've done my best to troubleshoot, verifying the setting on this 95 box against one of the others (which the XP box can see) and didn't notice any discrepencies.

Marty

 

Follow up to my own posting.

I had been using one of my 95 boxes for the dial up connection and installed proxyx to share the cnxtn. Now I've switched to using xp he box for the dial up and turned on ics.

So I also changed the static ip's for the boxes to get the ip automatically. Everything's running nicely so far.

One question though - are there security concerns using ics on xp home that I should be aware of? I do have all my hd's on the network password protected, is that adequate?

Marty

 

To take your questions in reverse order

- XP has no security issues that 9X didn't so if you were OK before, you should be fine.

- The 'invisible' 95 box ... does it have anything shared? Printer, folder, anything? Otherwise it won't show up. Also, have you tried connecting directly from the XP box? For instance, if you had 95COMPUTER and Somefolder shared, what would happen if you did
start~run~\\95COMPUTER\Somefolder from XP? It should open an explorer window with that folder.

 

Newt,

Good to hear I'm ok security wise, at least as ok as I've been for some years. Can't answer your question about accessing the share directly as you explain since it's not an issue anymore since setting up ICS and removing the static ip's.

Now my beef is that the darned XP computer will still just stop. Always happens when noone's on their account, i.e. after a logoff. I have half a dozen accounts setup and am beginning to wonder if this isn't a good idea for home edition?? It is a royal pain though, really.

Marty

 

marty - considering the problems you are having with XP-home, you might do better to pay the extra and upgrade the thing to XP-Pro. Not particularly expensive and from what I read, Pro is lots easier to deal with.

 

Hi Newt,

Sort of sorry to hear this although I respect where you're coming from in saying it. According to mysimon.com the upgrade costs almost $200, though I've seen it much cheaper on ebay. Not exactly peanuts there either though.

Marty

 

marty - you are correct. I hadn't realized the upgrade for Home to Pro is just the normal XP-Pro upgrade for use with 9x/me/2K. I had thought there was a specific one for well under $100 but can't find any signs of it. Bah, humbug.

You might try a general cleanup of the system to see if that helps. Certainly can't hurt.

- delete all temp files
- delete all temp internet files
- from a cmd prompt, chkdsk /r and reboot
- start~run~sfc /scannow
- SP1 if you don't already have it. Suggested is to download the SP to your PC, disable AV, load the SP.

The locking/freezing behavior is not normal but since it only happens in that one circumstance, I'm at a total loss to explain it.

 

95/xp networking

Since it worked before you re-installed 95, there is probably one of the followinf missing from your installation:

Make sure that you enabled 'file sharing' and installed the 'Client for Microsoft Networks' on 95 machine

XP by default does NOT install Netbeui - you need to hand install that IF you are not using 'netbios over TCP/IP' option (in other words if ALL computers in your network encapsulate Netbios in TCP/IP --or-- all include Netbeui, then the Windows networking will work correctly. If mixed, then most likely problems like you describe. Make sure that either 95 is using Netbios over TCP/IP --or-- Netbeui is installed on XP (need to go to XP CD and install from Valueadd/network/Netbios, I think...)

Make sure that the 95 box is in the same workgroup. Make sure that network mask, etc., is correct for your network.

Don't know about the locking-up, but the above should get your XP box to see the 95 box on the network.

 

Hi Sholton,

That problem fixed itself when I uninstalled ProxyX from the 95 box and started using DUNS with ICS on the XP box.

Y'know it occurs to me that these aren't just dumb machines. They have personalities and interactions.

Yeah, guess they're dumb machines with personalities and interactions.

Hey I have another one pertinent to this same thread. My XP box can access anything I allow it to on any of the 95 boxes, but I find the 95 boxes can't seem to get permission to look at much of the XP's hd. What might I be doing wrong?

Marty