Hello there fellow Peeps. Having some issues here! I recently switched from the dreaded dial-up (finally) to Cable high speed. Everything works well and I am extremly happy with my speed. I set up a home network. I am using a LinkSys wireless router. My two desktop computers are wired to the router and my laptop is using the wireless connection. All three can access the internet. My problem is that only the two desktop computers can access each others files and share printers. Neither one of those computers can see or access my laptop, and my laptop cannot even access the MSHOME network on my system. I have disabled all firewalls, Nortons, Zone Alarm, all that good stuff as well as the windows firewall. Still nothing. I do not believe that it has anything to do with the router because my friend brought his laptop over, set his folder permissions to shareing on and accessed everything on my two desktop computers, again, nothing from my laptop. This laptop is only two monthes old, has no large amounts of junk on it to limit access and is signed on as the administrator/owner. Any ideas?

--- By the way, all three computers are now Folding and I am starting to kick some butt! Where is everyone else on Folding?

I have the same problem. I narrowed it down to services when XP starts up.

You probably have some networking services either set to manual or disabled. Check there.

If you can't see your LAN but still want to add shared folders to and from your laptop you can go to 'My Network Places / Add Network Place' and add a shared folder in there. Just make sure you type it in as follows:

//laptop's name (or laptops IP address if its static)/shared folder name

Even though the computers can't 'see' each other, you can still add shared folders back and forth between them.

What operating system is on the desktops and what operating system is on the laptop

Thanks Coz, I'll give it a shot. MadMark, all three are Windows XP Home with Service pack 2.

Did you make sure the laptop is on the same workgroup?

The laptop is saying that it is on the same network "MSHOME" but it is still not working. I've tried most everything, I tried what you said Coz, but it is not that I can't just "see" the other computers, it tells me I don't have permission to access it. There has to be a setting somewhere that I am missing but I do not know where!

You are sure that you have file/printer sharing enabled on the laptop? You have created a folder on the laptop and shared it?
That would be the only reason why you would get the 'no permission'.

We can all safely assume you already tried to ping the laptop from a CMD prompt just to make sure it's "there"?

Just trying to go through some 'basics' networking steps so we can rule these things out...

Yep, the ping came back fine and all of my folders/printers are set to share. My folders are now showing up again on MSHOME, but still no access. The message reads:

\\Portable 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 access permissions.

The network path was not found.


I wan't to add that every once in a while the other computers show up on my network list, then disappear all on their own with me doing nothing. Also, a few weeks ago I was able to access the other computers files, and just like that I lost permission with me not lifting a finger. I am very puzzled! Right now they show up, I just can't open them.