[mrblue]

Hi there.

I have 2 laptops, one is XP and the other Windows 2000 Pro. I occassionally have to copy files from one to the other and a few years ago I managed to to do this in the "My Network Places" when I had a wired Netgear router.

I now have a BT Home Hub wireless router. Both laptops work perfectly fine. Recently bought a 3rd laptop which is Vista.

I created a Workgroup on each laptop called "Homenet". On the XP machine when I click on it it says that I don't have permission even though I gave myself administrator rights. On the W2000 machine is only displays its own computer name and the folders I shared within it.

At the moment I just email myself with attachments to transfer files.

The XP machine says that I have to run a CD on each of the other machines to complete the networking process, but I don't seem to have it. No matter what I do I can't "see" the XP machine from the W2000 and vice versa.

Any ideas?


Thanks in advance.

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I've been playing with it for a while, and I found a link on the home page to "techguys.com" and had a look there. I saw a google ad for "Network Magic" free software and it works very well indeed. It sets it all up for you!

However, it made my XP laptop run very hot, and it was running at 100% cpu usage whilst idling! So I uninstalled it.

I realised that the problem could well therefore be in the firewalls, so I disabled all firewalls, and hey presto, they can now see each other and I can access files from either one to the other about 95%. I then turned the firewalls back on, and put in their respective IP addresses as exceptions in their firewalls, and yes, it works, about 95%.

I'm sure if I continue playing around I'll crack it completely.

Happy that my firewalls were doing such a good job. Agnitum Outpost on the XP machine and Sunbelt's Kerio Personal Firewall on the Win 2000 Pro machine. Both free.

I can't "ping" the XP laptop from the W2000 Pro one, but I can access the files!! Weird.

Removed Norton from the Vista laptop as I think Norton is crap (it doesn't pass the leak test on www.grc.com) and put on Zone Alarm instead. It's one of the few free firewalls that runs on Vista. I can see the other 2 laptops on the Vista machine without creating a Workgroup. Interesting.

I shall continue playing... certainly the answer seems to be in the overly efficient firewalls!

[mrblue]

I've been playing with it for a while, and I found a link on the home page to "techguys.com" and had a look there. I saw a google ad for "Network Magic" free software and it works very well indeed. It sets it all up for you!

However, it made my XP laptop run very hot, and it was running at 100% cpu usage whilst idling! So I uninstalled it.

I realised that the problem could well therefore be in the firewalls, so I disabled all firewalls, and hey presto, they can now see each other and I can access files from either one to the other about 95%. I then turned the firewalls back on, and put in their respective IP addresses as exceptions in their firewalls, and yes, it works, about 95%.

I'm sure if I continue playing around I'll crack it completely.

Happy that my firewalls were doing such a good job. Agnitum Outpost on the XP machine and Sunbelt's Kerio Personal Firewall on the Win 2000 Pro machine. Both free.

I can't "ping" the XP laptop from the W2000 Pro one, but I can access the files!! Weird.

Removed Norton from the Vista laptop as I think Norton is crap (it doesn't pass the leak test on www.grc.com) and put on Zone Alarm instead. It's one of the few free firewalls that runs on Vista. I can see the other 2 laptops on the Vista machine without creating a Workgroup. Interesting.

I shall continue playing... certainly the answer seems to be in the overly efficient firewalls!