win xp pro & win 95

hOPE SOMEONE CAN HELP WITH THIS ISSUE. tHANKS!

Running a laptop with xp pro & a broadband internet connection. Some time ago I networked an old win 95 pc through a hub with no problem. Use the old pc to dump files for storage.

Its been a few months since I used this little network. When I connected my cable up again I get my problem.

The old 95 pc can see (network neighbourhood) & connect to the laptop & print to a printer connected to the laptop but I cant connect to the old 95 pc from the laptop.

They are both in the same workgroup & have unique names.

Any ideas or suggestions??

 

- Do you have File & Printer Sharing activated on the 95 PC?
- Do you have a folder or printer on the 95 PC shared?

If both the above are "yes" then try a scandisk and defrag on the 95 PC after you dump all the temp files, temporary internet files, any files in the root folder (probably C:\) that have the name filennnn.chk (where nnnn is any number) and reduce the total number of files in the root folder to as low as reasonable - under 100 should be safe but fewer is better. Then reboot and see if your problem is fixed.

 

Perhaps I'm not explaining very well.
The issue I believe is not with the secondry pc (win95). There is plenty of space on the c drive & no printers attached. Its connected to my main pc (xp pro laptop) thro a hub. The 95 pc can connect to the laptop. Its the xp laptop which cant connect to the 95 pc. They are both on the same workgroup.
In 'my network places' I cant see the workgroup or the 95 pc.

On the laptop, if I look at the properties of the network connection being used there are packets being sent but none being received.

 

While the Windows 95 machine can see the Windows XP laptop, but the Windows XP laptop cannot see the Windows 95 machine, that doesn't mean the problems are on the Windows XP machine.

For one machine to see the other, it has to have something to be seen. Have you carried out the checks indicated earlier in the thread?
It is a quirk of Windows 9x networking that unless something is being shared, then the Windows 9x machine doesn't appear, "it keeps quiet ".
You need to have the option to share files and folders enabled and you need to be sharing something. Then, once you have done that, wait a little while for the Windows XP machine to "see" the other machine and then you should be good to go.

If the answers to both of the earlier questions are "yes" then there is another problem which will require further diagnosis.

Simon.

 

thanks guys! my fault...... the name of my workgroup was not the same on both pc's. duhh!!
anyway i changed it & now can see the 95 pc on the laptop.

everything is shared out but when i double-click the 95pc i get "\\compaq is not accessable. you might not have permission to use this network resource. contact administrator to see if you have access permission. the network path was not found "

any ideas?
thanks in advance

 

Can you ping the other machine?
In a command prompt type:
ping <machine name>
where <machine name> is the name of the other machine.

Simon.

 

yeah
no problem with a ping!!

 

Sounds to me like the Computer name has been changed also.

What is the computer name on the 95? Is it in fact Compaq?

Look in my computer on the XP to see if you have drives mapped to the 95. If so.

Do one of 2 things.

1. Correct the name on the 95 to match what the XP wants.

or

2. In my computer on the XP click properties and then disconnect on these maped drives. Then remap the drives to the current name used by the 95.

Mike

 

well i've had another look. changed the name of the 95 pc to something completely different. can ping this pc with this new name.

if i try to map a drive i can drill down to workgroup but no further to find the 95pc.

i cant see the 95 pc icon on the xp machine now.
from the 95 pc in network neighbourhood i can ess the two pc's.

something i noticed. the workgroup is called 'HOME'. this i've checked on both pc's. when i go to 'my network places' & view workgroup computers the icon is called 'Home' (not capitols). could this be an issue?

 

nijinski - I understood you perfectly with your first post. I don't really like network neighborhood but have seen folks worry about the same problem you did when the issue was that unless a PC has something shared (folder or printer usually) the PC will not be visible in the neighborhood. And hidden shares don't count.

I've also seen a wide variety of strange problems with 9x solved by a scandisk & defrag - enough different things that I nearly always recommend those things with a 9x system that is having issues where the cause isn't immediately obvious. Likewise, having too many files in the root folder drives those systems nuts.

Workgroup name should not be case sensitive.

From the XP PC,
start~run~cmd and then
net view \\compaq (or whatever the 95 PC is named) and see if the shared folder(s) on the 95 PC show up.

If they don't, post back. If they do, try connecting a different way. For example, if your 95 PC is named Compaq and you have a folder shared as Stuff, then from the XP PC do the following and see if windows explorer opens the folder:

start~run~\\compaq\stuff

 

Hi.

I've tried to scan disc & defrag in normal & safe mode of the 95pc with no joy. Kept locking up.

On the xp pc I can see the workgroup & the 95pc in my neighbourhood. The error I'm getting is about permissions & the network path not being found.

 

I've tried to scan disc & defrag in normal & safe mode of the 95pc with no joy. Kept locking up.

This is not a good thing. Try booting to DOS and running scandisk from there. Use the /nosave and /surface switchs to get a full scan and to avoid adding junk to your system. So:

c:\> scandisk c: /surface /nosave

When that completes, reboot to normal mode and then
- empty your temp folder
- empty your temporary internet folder
- dump your internet history
- dump your cookies
- CTRL-ALT-DEL and kill any processes other than explore and systray (if it's there).

Then try the defrag again.

 

thanks for that, but with all due respect i think we are barking up the wrong tree. the 95 pc has plenty of space on the c drive - over 9g left. also both these pc's were networked a few months ago. no data has been put on the 95pc recently as this is just an old pc i use to store jpg's when i needed. but i've not done this for some time.

my main pc (the xp pc) has obviously changed over the months obviously, but nothing extraordinary.

i've always found the networking of these two a wee bit flaky- sometines i see the 95pc & somethine i didnt. but eventually managed to get my jpg's transfered over.

it seems to me that there is a reason the xp cant see the 95pc or that the 95pc is not sharing - & i think this is the issue.

didnt have time to address the scandisk issue before i left this morning but if you think its worth persueing i'll have a go this evening.
thanks again.

oh just one thing - how do i boot to dos. is this the same as file -run-command etc?

 

nijinski - the problem may be something completely different. Probably is in fact. But until you get the PC cleaned up, you may well be hearing hoofbeats and looking for zebras rather than horses.

Until we recently replaced all the workstations here with XP, I was providing off-hours support for around 1200 Win95 PCs. The range of strange issues they could develop that were cured by a scandisk/defrag was huge. And I got to the point that I wouldn't even try to troubleshoot a balky system until those were run.

To boot a 95 PC to DOS
- close out of Windows and turn your computer off.
- Wait 30 seconds.
- Turn your computer on and watch the monitor. As soon as you see the line 'Starting Windows 95....' , press the F8 key and you should see the Start-up Menu.
- If you see the Windows logo coming up, you missed it. Wait for Windows to load, then shut down, power off, and try again.
- Once you get to the start-up menu, highlight 'Command prompt only', then press ENTER.

 

Finally got a scandisk & then defrag done, following your suggestion. Also dumped all the stuff like you suggested.

From the xp pc I've tried again to connect to the 95pc. no joy. I can see the workgroup but cant drill down any further.

Tried mapping a drive but with the same result.

The 95pc has its c drive & a folder shared out.

The error message states that the network path was not found.

I can ping bedroom (the 95pc) from the xp but now i cant ping the xp from the 95 pc which was not the case previously.

 

Glad you got scandisk/defrag to work. Even though it did not fix things, the 95 PC should be more stable/reliable.

At this point, here are things you need to do (or to have already done)

- completely remove networking from the 95 PC. Easiest to remove the NIC from device manager in safe mode, shut down and remove the physical NIC, reboot and shut down again, replace the NIC and reinstall when you boot up. Make sure you are using the latest version of DUN for 95 the PC. Make sure you have the 95 version because the very latest DUN will only run on 98/ME. Even though you aren't doing dial-up, the networking applets are lots better.

- same workgroup and different PC names you've done. For 95 to really like it, the workgroup and PC names should be 12 characters or less and have no spaces or characters other than alpha-numeric and _ or -

- To use TCP/IP for the network comms, you'll have to make sure the PCs are in the same network. 192.168.0.x or 192.168.y.x (where y is the same for both) and a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 is good.

- Might be good since you have the 95 PC to load NetBeui on both though. Easy on 95 but you have to look around a little on XP. Check the M$ online help site and they have an article about doing just that.

- Both PCs will need to have a username & non-blank password used to make the comms work well. And easiest to add the 95 username/password to the users section of XP or to just use the same username/password on both.