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.
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