Can't network Vista & XP machines

[oldhippiechic]

First off...I've had trouble networking my desktop with my laptop XP machine before. I finally got a computer tech to get it working after about 3 hours...for something that he was sure would take 15 min. I had to replace the laptop.

Now I have a new Vista laptop and I'm having the same trouble. A friend who networks for a living spent hours trying to make it work (can't see one machine from the other- either way). We've tried everything including disabling Norton for a bit. It worked for about 3 min. at one point then we rebooted the machines and it was gone again.

I'm stumped. Is there anything you could suggest that could be causing this trouble? All systems are set to the same things on both machines (file sharing etc.) and the firewalls in Norton are set to accept as a trusted computer, the other machine. I think the problem is on the XP desktop since that's the one that gave me trouble before.

HELP

Thanks

D

[fizban2]

how are the machines connected? are they getting IPs from a router? can teh machines ping each other (for a command prompt type "ping <computername>) find the IP addresses for both PC's try using the same ping command but instead of the computer name use the Ip address

[un4given1]

In Control Panel under Network Sharing Center make sure that "Network Discovery" is on.

[oldhippiechic]

I just turned on the laptop to check the Discovery, although I did remember that it was checked (on the Vista machine).

Just for kicks...since I do it every time I turn the machine on, I checked the network and for the first time since my friend worked on it 2 days ago, I can see the other machine. I have no idea why it all of the sudden worked...again but I'm a bit afraid to turn it off since I lost it once that way.

Thanks for all of your suggestions...we'd tried everything and nothing seemed to work out. I can't see from the desktop to the laptop but that's not really important. I needed to see from the laptop to the desktop so I could transfer some files.

Also, and I've not tried this yet, but there are a few programs on the desktop that won't run on Vista (ex: FrontPage). I'm assuming I won't be able to run it from the laptop even tho' I can access it on the desktop but I'm not sure.

I've got to find a good replacement for FrontPage that will work with Vista. Mostly, I want to be able to edit webpages online without having to do them on the computer and then upload the changes. That's my next challenge.

Thanks for the suggestions...I'm not touching anything right now...hopefully it'll keep working.

[fizban2]

microsofts Expression web is the frontpage replacement

find it here

http://www.microsoft.com/Expression/produc...ew.aspx?key=web