Home Networking problems? try this.

[davidj]

Hi all, my second post and first thread. Thank's to Robert Williams for bringing my attention to this forum.

I see a few people are struggling with home networking issues, so I thought I would throw in a few suggestions to help resolve the issues.

The first trick to troubleshooting TCP communication problems is to obtain the IP address of each pc. (win 9x >Start>Run>Winipcfg. NT, 2000 & XP Start>Run>"type" cmd>and click OK. At the command prompt type ipconfig /all).

As most of you seem to have USR routers, which is DHCP enabled, the ip addresses should follow the same pattern i.e. 192.168.1.XXX, with the only difference in the last three numbers. The subnet mask should be 255.255.255.0 (possibly 255.255.0.0, or even 255.0.0.0).

Armed with this information you should be able to ping one computers IP address from the other. From a command prompt type ping 192.168.1.XXX (obviously replace my suggestion with the other pcs IP address). This should give you a response along the lines of "Reply from - IP address of the other computer".

If this is succesfull, you can now try searching for the other pc by IP address, Start>search>computers or people>A computer on the network> enter the IP address of the other pc. (it is slightly different terminology on 9x but easy enough to grasp.

You should now have the other pcs IP address shown as found. We now have confirmed we have communication but to make it a little sweeter it would be nice to have the pcs see one another by name. There are a number of ways of resolving an IP address to a name: DNS, Netbios, wins etc. For a simple 2 pc network it is easier though to create a host script. Search your computers C: drive for host.sam, edit this file by attatching to the end of the script the ip address of the other pc then tab to move the cursor along and type the network name of the pc (found by right clicking my computer in XP and 2000 and checking the various tabs for computer name, and by right clicking network neighbourhood in win 9X). Save the file, search in windows explorer for host.sam again (ensure the "view file extension" option is turned on) and rename the file from host.sam to host.

You can now return to the command promt and ping the other pc by name, i.e. ping xxxnamexxx (xxxnamexxx being the name of the other computer). You now have name resolution, and can search for the pc by name (as done previously by ip address). All that is left is to share drives/folders and overcome the security. Duplicate accounts with the same password on each pc is an easy way with xp and 2000, alternatively right click the shared folder and map it to a drive letter, you will be asked for credentials - use a logon account already established on the other pc.

I hope this is as clear to follow as it appears to me, if not post back and I will endeavour to assist further. For those in the know I am aware of the shortcomings of my suggestion, once this basic communication is established it can be improved to show the other pc in the network neighbourhood, I figured one step at a time is a better approach.

[Naveen]

The help and support center (with windows XP) contains a full overview of using IPX Netbios file and printer sharing for situations where you have a LAN behind NAT (i.e. 1 IP a router and more then 1 PC) -where they recommend that approach. It makes a lot of sense and once set up it certainly works!

The main advantage of this is that by running file and printer sharing over a protocol other then TCP/Internet Protocol, you can isolate your PC's file and printer sharing features from the internet.

If anyone wants a hand of course just ask!