2K and 98, ping but no ding

I have Win2K and a Win98se machine on my wireless home network and am attempting to establish a connection. The machines can successfully ping each other but do not show up in Net Neighborhood or My Net Places. I have Cliet for MS and File and Print Sharing enabled and the same workgroup name. Any suggestions?

 

If all else fails, put the computer name and IP address in the HOSTS and LMHOSTS file, it'll speed name resolution a bunch.

 

Can you ping by both name and IP or just IP.

If you can ping by IP but not name, then adding to the HOSTS file will resolve that problem.

Browsing is a completely difference issue and even though both the HOSTS and LMHOSTS files may be configured you still might not be able to successfully browse the network.

An easy test would be to manually enter in the computer name and share name for making a network connection rather than relying on browsing.

E.g. \\computerizing.

Johnwill, from recent previous posts, it seemed you preferred to install NetBEUI rather than my suggestions of using the HOSTS and LMHOST files to resolve not only the ability to ping but to make network connections. Has this now changed? Hope the links are correct.
http://forums.techguy.org/showthread.php?postid=1944282#poststop
http://forums.techguy.org/showthread.php?postid=1942519#poststop

 

Noticed that the example didn't quite come out right. Darn those spell checkers. So let me go over it and clarify a little.

If you can ping by both name and IP then you don't need to add anything to the HOSTS file. Likley the LMHOSTS as well.

Before doing that, to test to make sure it is not just a browsing issue, try manually making a network connection using the computer and share name (this is where the typo came in)

From a command prompt:
net use x: \\computer_name\share_name

From the Windows Explorer
Tools / Map Network Drive
Select a drive letter
For the path enter \\computer_name\share_name

If either one still can't resolve the computer name, then edit the LMHOSTS file. With W2K it is in the \windows (or \winnt)\system32\drivers\etc directory. For Win9x it is in the \windows directory.

The syntax for either one is IP_Address followed by the computer_name (the number of spaces between the two is not relevant.

e.g. 192.168.0.2 computer1

 

At this point I can only ping the IP addresses....I cannot browse the network at all, even by manually entering the other computer name...I'm going yo try the host file advice...thanks

 

If you can only ping by IP, then the name resolution is not working. Rather than trying to figure out why or installing NetBEUI, I've generally recommeded just using the HOSTS and LMHOSTS file. It's an easy solution that works. Just make sure each computer has a static IP address since you wouldn't want this to change.

As previously detailed, add the computer's IP address and name to the HOSTS and LMHOSTS files.