Networking XP and Vista

[spacesurfer]

Here's my experience trying to network a desktop xp pc and a vista laptop.

I just learned the hard way that a slight mistake in numbers can take you in circles. Here was my situation:

I was able to connect to my files stored on the xp desktop from vista laptop but couldn't connect to shared resources on the vista laptop from the xp desktop. I could ping the xp desktop but not the vista laptop. I could see the vista laptop in the xp desktop but couldn't not access it. I couldn't not see the xp desktop in vista laptop even though xp had the LLTD update.

I spent countless hours trying to figure out what the deal was. I suspected Norton Internet Security since a lot of people reported this problem but boy they were wrong; NIS was innocent.

Finally, it turned out that my subnet mask in xp desktop was set to 255.255.0.0. How it got that way I do not know. I was lucky enough to notice it before I pulled out all my hair and went bald. I corrected this to 255.255.255.0 and lo and behold, I was able to network and see both computers mutually.

So, before you suspect NIS or any other firewall, make sure you got all of your numbers straight.

I had also seen on the net that some people recommended giving "Everyone" all the privileges to the networked resources because they couldn't not connect a vista computer to an xp computer. I don't recommend this. If you can't access resources, it means you need to investigate all your setting are correct:

1) Check your workgroup. Make sure it is spelled exactly the same in each computer.

2) Check firewall and make sure all of your computer belong to a trusted network. You may have to add each computer's IP or MAC address to each computer's firewall settings. Double check your numbers.

3) Check to see if you can ping the computers. I wasn't able to ping because my subnet mask was wrong. If you can't ping, you need to make sure you IP address is correct and your subnet mask is correct.

Other can add tips if they wish.

[nitroshift]

Those types of (human) errors are quite common... I remember when I networked some ~15 pc's for a small company and the evening before I was invited to a party with lots of beer. Needless to say that I shoved the SAME IP address in every pc then wondered where the heck those IP conflict pop-ups come from