Network problems

[Cymro]

Here's the deal:

• Two computers (1 PC, 1 laptop) running Windows XP Home
• A Belkin F5D7632-A wireless router
• PC is connected via ethernet to the router, but the laptop is wirelessly connected
  
• The internet's being shared fine

However, it recently (well, a few months ago) stopped sharing files and printer sharing between them. The necessary folders are shared, file sharing is on, and I've tried running the home network wizard several times but nothing seems to happen.

There's probably something small that I'm missing out, like a service or a "press here to make it work" tickbox. Please enlighten me!

 

[Archonsod]

Firewalls set to allow the hosts to communicate?

 

[Cymro]

Speaking of firewalls, it seems that the windows firewall was buggered. I reset that with info from the microsoft KB before going to bed last night, but it only came into effect when I restarted it this afternoon.

silly obvious solutions *grumble*

 

[Archonsod]

File sharing sucks in the home edition of OS's, always has.

You can get around it by mapping the shared folders to  a (virtual) network drive, I've not seen Windows screw that up (though doing it in XP Home is a ****ing barrel of laughs). What you'll probably find is that the folders / printers etc disappear from the "network neighbourhood" view but are still accessible via the IP address. I suspect it's Microsoft trying to kludge it for performance by restricting the number of network broadcasts going on and thus the frequency of updates.

Does the router have an inbuilt firewall? If so drop the firewall on the cabled connection - anything capable of tunneling through the router's firewall will piss on the Windows firewall from a great height, and it'll only cause problems with communication on the LAN. The wireless one might be a bit tricky depending on protocols, though if you can force it to only accept communication from the router it should be ok to drop the firewall there too. Either way, mixing Windows Firewall with actual firewalls is asking for trouble.

 

[Cymro]

As far as I know, the router has a firewall. To expand on my previous post, unbuggering the windows firewall/ICS with

Rundll32 setupapi,InstallHinfSection Ndi-Steelhead 132 %windir%\inf\netrass.inf
then
Netsh firewall reset

Seemed to have done the trick. I can access the other files now. The windows firewall is now, and before the problems was set to off, but it "couldn't start" in that period of time, so it probably decided it was a good idea to stop me from using the network too

 

[Morbo]

Ugh, all those built-in router firewalls I've seen are so horribly lacking in options and stuff to configurate. Always just switch it and the Windows one off completely and use a proper free software firewall.

 

[Archonsod]

Software on-system is only ever useful if you're using said system as a bastion. Otherwise you should always firewall the router instead.

And what kind of options are you expecting? All you really need is the ability to specify ports to open / close and the local IP to pass communication to and some basic configuration options. Anything else is a bit extravagant ...

 

[Morbo]

But I like the option to block/allow any applications on your puter that you get with software firewalls, instead of just working with boring ports.

 

[Archonsod]

It always got on my tits, I mean, if I didn't want the app connecting to the net, I wouldn't be running the bloody thing in the first place.

 

[Morbo]

I refuse to let stuff that has absolutely no need of the net have access to it. I'm just weird like that!