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[Chris Grindstaff <chris AT gstaff.org>]

Monday, February 20, 2006, 12:25:32 PM, you wrote:

Hello Calvin,
Do you by chance have "Simple File Sharing turned on" ? You can check
by opening a Windows explorer choosing Tools > Folder Options > View
and scroll to the very bottom of the tree.

I have no end of problems when Simple File Sharing is on so I always
turn it off.

According to
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;304040#XSLTH4120120127120121120120
there are a number of things affected by this option.

HTH,
Chris

CP> Howdy,

CP> I'm sure this is a very basic issue, but I don't know enough about Windows
CP> Networking/NetBios to understand how to fix it. Any advice would be
CP> appreciated.

CP> I have two computers the laptop and the desktop. For months (years?) I 
have
CP> had no trouble doing windows networking with them. They are both running 
XP.
CP> They are both in a workgroup called CSP. When I show the computers in the
CP> workgroup both machines see each other in the workgroup.

CP> My desktop machine has a shared printer and several shared folders. My
CP> laptop has "network places" for these shares using the name
CP> \\desktop\Deskjet \\desktop\bkp etc etc. All this was working beautifully
CP> until last week.

CP> Last week I started getting "network path not found" errors and warnings
CP> that I might not have permissions to access the resource. Both machines 
can
CP> get on the internet just fine so I don't think it's a TCPIP issues. Both
CP> machines can still see each other when I display the machines in the
CP> workgroup.

CP> However, if I open up a command window and run "net view \\desktop" or 
"net
CP> view \\laptop" I get similar error messages.

CP> BUT, I have discovered that if I use IP addresses instead of machine 
names,
CP> everything works just fine. For example I can create a share on my laptop
CP> like \\192.168.1.103\Deskjet and print to the deskjet printer just fine.
CP> This is a good temporary fix. In theory that desktop machine would always
CP> get the 103 address. But I'd much rather continue to use it by name.

CP> I'm not naive enough to claim that "I haven't changed anything." I'm sure
CP> something ahs changed but don't know what. I do know that several 
microsoft
CP> updates were installed on the desktop machine recently. And I created an
CP> account for my girlfriend on that machine. But it stays logged on to my
CP> account most of the time and was logged into my account when trying to
CP> access the shares. I'm not aware of any software additions on my laptop
CP> recently. There might have been some microsoft updates pushed to it, but I
CP> don't think so.

CP> I checked to ensure that the windows fireall was disabled on the desktop
CP> machine and the firewall was disabled on my laptop machine. (But I've used
CP> it with the laptop firewall truned on for many months, so I believe the
CP> laptop firewall is configured to let all the necessary traffic through
CP> anyway.)

CP> Can anyone offer any advice? Is there some windows service that might have
CP> gotten disabled or blocked?



-- 
Chris Grindstaff | http://gstaff.org