I’m having trouble connecting my two computers in a home networking situation.
Laptop is a Dell with a Linksys Pcm-card NIC.
Desktop is homebuilt with a Linksys PCI NIC.
Router is a Linksys BEFSR41.
The TCP/IP protocol is installed on both machines. The firmware of the router has been upgraded. The laptop is set to use “Logon for Microsoft Networking” rather than “Windows Logon”.
I have tried manually assigning IPs to the computers and turning off DHCP at the router, and turned on DHCP and let the computers be assigned an IP.
I can ping the laptop with the desktop but not the other way around. I can ping the router with both computers.
The laptop appears in the desktop’s NetNay but cannot be browsed. The NetNay cannot be browsed from the laptop.
What am I doing wrong???
Just to entertain you for reading this far and perhaps motivate you to assist me, here’s a very bad and somewhat non-PC joke:
Three Native American women were due to give birth. In keeping with the customs of their tribe, the babies were to be born onto the skin of an animal. The first squaw choose a buffalo hide. The second squaw chose a deer hide. The third squaw chose a hippo hide (yeah, they’re not indigenous to North America - just play along, alright? Maybe two swallows carried it with a string between them. European ones.). The squaws on the buffalo and deer hides each gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. The one on the hippo skin gave birth to twins. This just goes to show that the sum of the squaw on the Hippopotamus as equal to the sum of the squaws on the other two hides.
Thanks folks, I’ll be here all week, especially if I don’t get this d@mn networking issue sussed!
What operating systems are on the PCs? Any firewall software on either of them?
As a quick WAG, I’d say that the desktop probably is XP with it’s own firewall software turned on, and blocking ICMP (ping) requests, or it has some firewall software (zone alarm, black ice, etc) installed, and doing the same.
I have a similar scenario which may have the same or similar cause:
Computer A: Tower running XP
Computer B: Notebook running Win98SE
Computer C: Tower running WIN98SE
The three networked with a hub.
B communicates with both A and C but A and C cannot see each other. I have not been able to resolve it. No matter what I do, A and C cannot see each other axcept that if I try to give one of them the IP address of the other it will say the IP is already taken. Then is when I start yelling at the computer “Taken by who, you idiot!” but to no avail. They refuse to talk to each other. I do not know what may have happened between them in the past but there seems to be some bad blood.
Sailor - I am 90 percent sure that this is the answer to your problem. I have given this advice 3 or 4 times in similar threads here, and each time the OP was never heard from again. Can you post back if this works? Capnfutile, if you have mixed XP and 98, this probably applies to you also.
Anyway, its probably a browse master issue. One machine in each windows workgroup holds the master browse list that all other machines use to find and connect to shares. If two machines are acting as browse master, or one machine thinks a machine is browse master when in fact it isn’t, you’ll get problems like yours. You can use the nbtstat -n command at a dos prompt to see if a machine is running as browse master, but you can’t tell which machine the win98 thinks the browse master is (if it isn’t itself).
What you want to do is disable the win98 machines from being browse masters. To do this, go into your network properties (either right click network neighborhood and choose properties or double click network in control panel). In the list of installed components, highlight File and Print sharing. If it isn’t there, you will have to add it. Click the properties button. Under properties, select browse master, and in the pull down list select “disabled”. Click apply, ok, ok, etc. and reboot.
Another problem which I have seen (but not as often) is Win98 will sometimes pull a wrong subnet mask when getting an address through DHCP. If this is the case, you will have to use winipcfg to release all and then renew all. No reboot needed.
tourbot, you bring up something I did not even know existed. I checked both WIN98SE machines and both were set to “automatic”. I tried setting them to "disabled but that made things worse as now they could not see anybody. I have restored them to where they were.
I have run “nbtstat -n” with the following results:
Machine A - AMD900 - WINXP
Node IpAddress: [192.168.0.21] Scope Id: []
NetBIOS Local Name Table
Name Type Status
---------------------------------------------
RPM-MAD <00> UNIQUE Registered
WORKGROUP <00> GROUP Registered
RPM-MAD <20> UNIQUE Registered
RPM-MAD <03> UNIQUE Registered
WORKGROUP <1E> GROUP Registered
USER01 <03> UNIQUE Registered
WORKGROUP <1D> UNIQUE Registered
..__MSBROWSE__.<01> GROUP Registered
Machine B = COMPAQ01 - WIN98SE
Node IpAddress: [169.254.114.124] Scope Id: []
NetBIOS Local Name Table
Name Type Status
---------------------------------------------
COMPAQ01 <00> UNIQUE Registered
WORKGROUP <00> GROUP Registered
COMPAQ01 <03> UNIQUE Registered
COMPAQ01 <20> UNIQUE Registered
WORKGROUP <1E> GROUP Registered
EPOX01 <03> UNIQUE Registered
WORKGROUP <1D> UNIQUE Conflict
..__MSBROWSE__.<01> GROUP Registered
Machine C - Epox01 - WIN98SE
Node IpAddress: [192.168.0.31] Scope Id: []
NetBIOS Local Name Table
Name Type Status
---------------------------------------------
EPOX01 <00> UNIQUE Registered
WORKGROUP <00> GROUP Registered
EPOX01 <03> UNIQUE Registered
EPOX01 <20> UNIQUE Registered
WORKGROUP <1E> GROUP Registered
WORKGROUP <1D> UNIQUE Registered
..__MSBROWSE__.<01> GROUP Registered
I do not know what all this means but I notice something very odd. Machine B, the only one which can communicate with both the others, lists a wrong IP address. It is configured as 192.168.0.23 and yet it reports 169.254.114.124. I have no idea where that address comes from and it is odd that this is the only machine which can communicate with all the rest. There is also a note which says CONFLICT in that computer. Can you explain the meaning of all this?
capnfutile I’ve had numerous problems like this one and it usually turns out to be something like:
NETBEUI not installed on one of the machines.
The subnet mask not being the correct/the same on one of the machines (to my shame, I haven’t yet actually learned what the hell this means, but I know that getting it wrong messes things up)
Yup sailor, they all think they are the master browser. I’ve seen situations where win98 machines, for whatever reason do not recognize that XP should take over as the master browser. That’s why I said disable on the win98 machines. You could also disable on the XP machine and leave it enabled in 98. To disable in XP, you have to go to Administrative tools (in program menu, or control panel), services, find the browser service and right click on it to select properties, then choose disabled. (I’m writing this from a Slackware box, so the directions might be off a little.) Try disabling again, XP or 98 should make no difference, as long as there is one master browser per workgroup. Make sure all PC’s are on the same subnet, and wait about 20 minutes (browser elections and announcements take place every 20 minutes).
Machine B’s IP address there is an autoconfig address, which windows machines will create for themselves when they find no DHCP server available. Are there 2 network adapters in it? Try using winipcfg to see what adapter that address is bound to, and if it is the correct adapter, try to release and renew. It may also be seeing the other machines over some other protocol, such as netbeui or IPX. TCP/IP is easier to troubleshoot, though. So for now, you may want to make sure TCP/IP is the only protocol installed.
Now that I am on an XP machine, to disable XP from being the browse master:
Control Panel->Administrative tools->Services. Right click on Computer Browser, select properties. Change startup type to disabled. Click the stop button to stop the service.
Another idea, try having only two computers on and getting the two of them to see each other. Then turn the third on.
In the device manager of the laptop I disabled an unused network adapter and now “nbtstat -n” reports the correct IP address and the “conflict” error has disappeared but nothing else has changed. I did try disabling the “browse master” thing but it makes things worse so I changed it back.
What is baffling is that the XP machine can see one Win98se machine and not the other in spite that they are both configured the same. I have looked into pretty much everything and can find no difference in configuration.
I did try connecting the two machines directly but they still won’t talk to each other.
The fact that the laptop is the only one which can talk to both the others means I have to use it as a bridge and it is getting worn more than it should. I use the other machine for video processing and when I transfer huge video files back and forth. The laptop’s hard drive is transferring tens of GB of files every day and I wish I could avoid that but so far no luck.
I have been messing with the “Browse master” settings but no luck. If I change anything in the WIN98SE machines then it makes things worse so they are both set to “automatic”. The XP machine OTOH has at least half a dozen network related items under “services” which I have been tinkering with without really understanding them completely. At least XP does not require a re-start every time like WIN98SE does.
It seems the two WIN98SE machines now admit they are not the “browse masters” but Machines A and C still cannot see each other. I am trying to interpret the nbtstat results:
Tower - Win XP
Node IpAddress: [192.168.0.21] Scope Id: []
NetBIOS Local Name Table
Name Type Status
---------------------------------------------
RPM-MAD <00> UNIQUE Registered
WORKGROUP <00> GROUP Registered
RPM-MAD <03> UNIQUE Registered
RPM-MAD <20> UNIQUE Registered
WORKGROUP <1E> GROUP Registered
WORKGROUP <1D> UNIQUE Registered
..__MSBROWSE__.<01> GROUP Registered
Laptop - WIN98SE
Node IpAddress: [192.168.0.23] Scope Id: []
NetBIOS Local Name Table
Name Type Status
---------------------------------------------
COMPAQ01 <00> UNIQUE Registered
WORKGROUP <00> GROUP Registered
COMPAQ01 <03> UNIQUE Registered
COMPAQ01 <20> UNIQUE Registered
WORKGROUP <1E> GROUP Registered
EPOX01 <03> UNIQUE Registered
Tower - WIN98SE
Node IpAddress: [192.168.0.31] Scope Id: []
NetBIOS Local Name Table
Name Type Status
---------------------------------------------
EPOX01 <00> UNIQUE Registered
WORKGROUP <00> GROUP Registered
EPOX01 <03> UNIQUE Registered
EPOX01 <20> UNIQUE Registered
WORKGROUP <1E> GROUP Registered
In each machine the machine itself appears three times as “unique” and no other machine appears. Workgroup <00> and workgroup <1E> also appear in all three machines. Then workgroup <1D> which appeared on all machines the first time around now only appears in one machine. Only the second machine shows another computer by name. What is the meaning of all this? I cannot make heads or tails of it.
Well, it is good that only one machine believes it is the master browser. Unfortunately, there is no way in Win98 of telling if machine C is using A as the master browser. What may happen is that C thinks that B is the master browser, even though B knows it isn’t. This should not happen if the Xp machine is turned on first. Try shutting down all PCs, then boot the XP up first, then just C. Test if C can ping A. Check nbtstat -n. If the MSbrowse is showing correct, try “net view” on both. This should show a list of computers on the network (at this point, A and C). If not, it may return an error. If it doesn’t show an error but the computer list is not complete (at this point, both A and C), try “net view <\computername>”, where computername is the remote computer. This should show the list of shares on that computer, or at least an error.
I’m not sure why disabling browse master would cause a problem with A and B if B is recognizing A as the browse master. If it is disabled on both B and C, it will cause problems between them if one or the other can’t connect to A (since they will both need A to resolve shares). That’s the reason I think it’s best to work out the problem with A and C, and once that’s done, the rest should work itself out.
I have a networking problem, also, and since this thread already has the attention of some experts I’m going to try and see if I can get my problem fixed.
I have two WinXP computers, one runing Pro the other running Home. They are connected to a Linksys Eatherfast Cable router (BEFSR41). Before I had to pack everything up for a move both computers were able to see each other in the Workgroup. Now, after hooking everything back up the Home computer cannot access the Workgroup. Both pcs can ping each other by IP and by Name. The Pro pc can see the Home pc in MyNetworkPlaces and can access the shared folders and both pcs show up in View Workgroup Computers. On the Home pc, only the local shared folder shows up on MyNetworkPlaces and an error message is displayed when trying to View Workgroup Computers.
The error message I get is: Mshome is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the Administrator of this server to find out if you have accesss permissions. The network path was not found.
As far as I can ascertain (and I’ll admit that I know how to set up a network, but not all fo the nitty-gritty of why things have to be just so, or exactly what they are doing all of the time), netbeui is the protocol/service that handles the ‘friendly’ aspects of Windows Networking - the advertisement of the computer names, resources etc.
Although I could just be wrong about that.
If you run “netstat –n” you will see all your connections and I believe the UPD are Netbeui connections used by the machine to send datagrams to the other machines telling them it is online and other such things.
Netbeui is a seperate protocol, and adding it can fix problems like this. However, it is non-routable (which, actually, is an advantage for security in a home environment), and there is almost nothing to configure with it, and almost no tools to examine netbeui functions. Which is a bit of a problem when it fails to work. It isn’t necessary to have netbeui itself installed for windows networking to function, if that were so Windows networks would never be able to cross routers. It is possible to run netbios, which is the part of the protocol which handles the “friendly aspects” that you mention, over another protocol (such as TCP/IP, as is done with SAMBA, or IPX). In XP, you can see the settings for Netbios on the WINS tab of the advanced TCP/IP settings. In 98, I think there is a checkbox on one of the TCP/IP property tabs or something.
But for a down and dirty fix where you aren’t worried about why it worked, adding netbeui is definitely worth a shot. Adding IPX with netbios support is another alternative, too. If adding another protocol works, it does prove that there was something wrong in the configuration of the first protocol (TCP/IP).
So tourbot, I SHOULD be able to run this network with just tcp/ip, but something is prolly set up wrong?
At this point I don’t care too much about figuring out why it didn’t work; I’m just pleased that throwing netbeui in there solved everything. But if someone explained it to me, I’d listen attentively
