[Abu Yahya]

I have a desktop PC running Windows 2000 Professional. Yesterday I got a Cisco wireless router and installed it. I also installed a wireless USB card on my wife's Toshiba laptop and an internal wireless card on the desktop.

Because of a defective CD-ROM drive, I haven't installed the driver for the desktop card, so it is connected to the internet via an ethernet cable to the WiFi router; I am using it now. The laptop is connected successfully via wireless.

I need to set up a file-sharing network, and while the Network Setup Wizard on the laptop did this very easily, it doesn't work so well on the desktop. Whenever I try to contact the laptop, I get a 678 error.

(PS: A 678 error means communication with the other device has failed.

[JohnWill]

Top suspect is a firewall. Turn off any firewalls for debugging. If the firewall is the problem, you'll have to configure it to allow access to "trusted zone" addresses. Note that some firewalls must be completely uninstalled to stop them from affecting your networking.

Hold the Windows key and press R, then type CMD to open a command prompt.

In the command prompt window that opens, type type the following commands:

PING each remote computer by IP address, and if successful, PING by name. Open a command prompt as described above and type.

PING <ip address>
or
PING <computer name>

Where:
<ip address> - is the x.x.x.x IP address
<computer name> - is the computer name

A failure to PING is almost always a firewall configuration issue. Any failure to PING needs to be corrected before you go any farther.

Note: You can obtain the IP address and computer name of a computer by opening a command prompt (DOS window) and typing IPCONFIG /ALL. This should work for any Windows version. The IPCONFIG /ALL display will provide a wealth of useful information for debugging your network connection.

Check your Services are Started on all PCs:

• COM+ Event System (for WZC issues)
• Computer Browser
• DHCP Client
• DNS Client
• Network Connections
• Network Location Awareness
• Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
• Server
• TCP/IP Netbios helper
• Wireless Zero Configuration (XP wireless configurations)
• WLAN AutoConfig (Vista wireless configurations)
• Workstation

Note: You can check the services in Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services.

All of these services should be started, and their startup type should be automatic.

If a service is not running, open it's properties and check the dependencies. Check each of the dependencies and see which one is preventing the service from running. Checking the event log is also a good idea here, there may be clues to what is failing.


All computers should be in the same workgroup for computer browsing to function properly. File & Print Sharing has to be enabled on any computer you wish to share files or printers from. You also need to actually share the resource in question from My Computer, right click on the drive/printer/folder, and select sharing.

If you encounter difficulties accessing computers that are visible in Network Places (Network and Sharing Center in Vista), make sure the computer being accessed has an account with the same name/password as the system connecting to it uses to login. NOTE: Vista's default is to require a password on the account to enable file/print sharing.

While the default NetBIOS setting is correct for normal network configurations, it's possible for it to be altered, and it costs nothing to make sure it's correct. NETBIOS over TCP/IP must be enabled for normal network browsing. You can open a command prompt as described above and type the following command: nbtstat -n. This will display the status of NetBIOS or indicate it's not configured.

[Abu Yahya]

Thanks so much for responding!

I shut off the firewall and pinged the Toshiba. Here are the results:

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>ping 192.168.1.100

Pinging 192.168.1.100 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.1.100: bytes=32 time=74ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.100: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.100: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.100: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.100:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 1ms, Maximum = 74ms, Average = 22ms

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>ping Laura

Pinging Laura [192.168.1.100] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.1.100: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.100: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.100: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.100: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.100:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 1ms, Maximum = 1ms, Average = 1ms

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>

[JohnWill]

That looks like a good connection, are you still having a problem connecting?

[Abu Yahya]

Yes.

[JohnWill]

Let's see this for each computer.


Hold the Windows key and press R, then type CMD to open a command prompt:

In the command prompt window that opens, type type the following commands, one at a time, followed by the Enter key:

Note that there is a space before the -n or the /ALL, but there is NOT a space after the - or / in the following commands.

NBTSTAT -n

IPCONFIG /ALL

Right click in the command window and choose Select All, then hit Enter to copy the contents to the clipboard.
Paste the results in a message here.

If you are on a machine with no network connection, use a floppy, USB disk, or a CD-RW disk to transfer a text file with the information to allow pasting it here.

[Abu Yahya]

Here are the results for the desktop computer (Win 2000 Pro)

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>nbtstat -n

Local Area Connection:
Node IpAddress: [192.168.1.102] Scope Id: []

NetBIOS Local Name Table

Name Type Status
---------------------------------------------
OLIVIA <00> UNIQUE Registered
OLIVIA <20> UNIQUE Registered
WORKGROUP <00> GROUP Registered
OLIVIA <03> UNIQUE Registered
WORKGROUP <1E> GROUP Registered
ADMINISTRATOR <03> UNIQUE Registered
WORKGROUP <1D> UNIQUE Registered
..__MSBROWSE__.<01> GROUP Registered

[Abu Yahya]

And here is the result for the Toshiba (Windows XP)

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner>nbtstat -n

Wireless Network Connection 2:
Node IpAddress: [192.168.1.100] Scope Id: []

NetBIOS Local Name Table

Name Type Status
---------------------------------------------
LAURA <00> UNIQUE Registered
LAURA <20> UNIQUE Registered
HOME <00> GROUP Registered
HOME <1E> GROUP Registered
HOME <1D> UNIQUE Registered
..__MSBROWSE__.<01> GROUP Registered

[JohnWill]

You appear to have a firewall still active and blocking you on at least one of the computers. Both of them think they're the master browser, that happens when they can't communicate at the NETBIOS level.

Disable ALL firewalls on both ends and see if you can connect.

[Abu Yahya]

I just turned off the firewall on the desktop; here are the results:

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>nbtstat -n

Local Area Connection:
Node IpAddress: [192.168.1.102] Scope Id: []

NetBIOS Local Name Table

Name Type Status
---------------------------------------------
OLIVIA <00> UNIQUE Registered
OLIVIA <20> UNIQUE Registered
WORKGROUP <00> GROUP Registered
OLIVIA <03> UNIQUE Registered
WORKGROUP <1E> GROUP Registered
ADMINISTRATOR <03> UNIQUE Registered
WORKGROUP <1D> UNIQUE Registered
..__MSBROWSE__.<01> GROUP Registered

The laptop has no firewall. This makes no difference in the result

[JohnWill]

Do both of the machines still show a line like this?

..__MSBROWSE__.<01> GROUP Registered

If so, there is still some firewall component blocking the traffic between them.

[Abu Yahya]

Yes, they do. I noticed that Windows XP has a built-in firewall; I turned that off on the laptop and got the same results as before (nbtstat-n command as well as trying to connect).

So there's some firewall component on both computers that I cannot locate

[JohnWill]

That would appear to be the case. Try booting both in Safe Mode with Networking using wired connections, just as a test. See if they can connect that way.

[Abu Yahya]

Alhamdullah!

It worked. My mind is officially blown.

I tried this just now, and then rebooted. Oddly, when I was in safe mode, nothing I tried actually worked; I tried to set up a network(from the desktop) but the option I wanted was grayed out. Still, I was able to give permission for other computers to network to the desktop.

When I rebooted and tried it, the desired network link was there.

I feel really bad about not being able to provide a more explicit explanation of what I did, but it would appear that merely rebooting in safe mode with networking and then restarting a second time (normally) did the trick. I admit I was totally skeptical but you did it!

Thanks so much!

[JohnWill]

We don't try to understand these things, we just rejoice in the fact that the are now working!


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