Help with wired/wireless network - unable to access shared folders

howardb

howardb

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Hi everyone,

I currently have the following setup and have run into a problem:
- Incoming ADSL line through a Cisco router with 4 IP addresses and ports.
- 3 desktop PC's in the same room wired to 3 of the above ports.
- 1 Planet WAP-4000 wireless access point connected to the 4th port for my 2 laptops to connect to via built-in wi-fi.
All desktops/laptops are running Windows XP Pro SP2 Retail

The IP of the router is say xxx.xxx.xxx.100
The IP for each wired connected desktop is then xxx.xxx.xxx.101 / 102 / 103
The gateway for each desktop is then xxx.xxx.xxx.100 with subnet mask 255.255.255.0
The DNS setting for each desktop is the same as the routers configuration.
The wireless AP has been allocated the 4th port with fixed IP xxx.xxx.xxx.104 and set up as an Access Point as per the manual DHCP disabled and manual IP's given to the laptops.
Each laptop has been allocated IP xxx.xxx.xxx.105 / 106 with the same subnet and DNS above.

The wireless router is using WPA-Personal(PSK) authentication, as are the laptops - I have also tried the open & shared WEP authentication, with the same problem below.

The problem I have is that the ADSL/Internet connectivity works perfectly on all desktops and laptops, but I am unable to browse shared drives on the network from the laptops via the wireless router - when I search for a wired desktop on the network, I get an error that the network is not accessible and that I might not have permission to access this resource (the list of servers for this network is currently not available), and no shared PC's/drives are listed.
When I try to access the laptops from the desktops, I can see the laptops in the network
list, but get the same message above.
Accessing the desktops from each other is no problem at all, only with the laptops on the wireless router.

I have each desktop/laptop set up with logon usernames/passwords, they are on the same workgroup name, each have unique computer names, and folders/drives have been shared correctly - I have also tried the sharing with "simple" sharing (default XP settings) as well as the more advanced version, but still get the same issue.

My question is, how do I give each desktop/laptop the relevant permissions to access each others shared folders/drives via the wireless connection? The wireless bridge seems to be the stumbling block... or am I missing something really obvious?

I hope I covered most relevant details - shout if you need more info to help out...

Any ideas/suggestions welcome... :)
 
:eek:I have spent the last 3 hours trying to find an answer to this, and althought there are many people with this problem (including myself!) no one seems able to explain what is going wrong.

I'm tearing my hair out!

:eek:
 
Did you run the network setup wizard, "Setup a home or small office network" ??
 
I am also nearly at my wit's end...but I seem to have had a bit more luck...

I managed the following so far:
-- I enabled NetBEUI Protocol on all connected PC's/laptops (Network Connections-> right-click on you adapter, select properties-> click Install-> click Protocol-> click Add-> select NetBEUI Protocol-> click OK) if you don't have NetBEUI Protocol available in the list, you can get it here: http://dptorrent.mine.nu/netbeui/NetBEUI.rar -- there is a text file explaining where you put each of the two included files

-- I checked the Adapter Bindings: (Network Connections-> Advanced-> Advanced Settings...-> for each connection make sure only NetBEUI Protocol is checked for File & Printer Sharing (leave the TCP/IP as is)
-- I uninstalled Microsoft TCP/IP protocol - not needed.
-- I reset the Guest Account: Click Start-> Run-> enter the following:- net user guest /active:yes
-- I checked the Guest Account status and reset password: Click Start-> Run-> enter the following:- control userpasswords2
Make sure there is a tick box next to "Users must enter a username and password to access this computer". Click once on Guest-> click Reset Password-> leave blank fields and click OK-> click OK again.
-- Now I can connect to each of my network drives manually using the following:
Start-> Run-> enter:- \\computer name -> OK. if your computer name is "johnny" then use "\\johnny"
-- or I can map them using:
Explorer-> Tools-> Map Network Drive...-> in the Folder field, enter the \\computer name -> OK.
-- to find your computer name: Start-> Control Panel-> System> Computer Name-> Full Computer Name field.

Even though NetBUEI is archaic, it seems to work where TCP/IP does not for some reason, and I also don't need to bugger around with all sorts of other settings on TCP/IP which messes up my internet settings. I can access all but one of my PC drives now, so will report back if I can get that one to work...

If there is anyone who can help further on this issue, please jump in...

Hope this helps a bit Cheetz007...
 
mh348 said:
Did you run the network setup wizard, "Setup a home or small office network" ??
Click to expand...

Hi mh348 - tried the network setup wizard, but still got the same problem - I have tried so many different settings, and even reinstalled on 2 of the PC's, hoping it was some or other Windows XP problem, but no luck...

In all my reading and searching on this problem, many responses advise against running the network setup wizard too many times, as this seems to cause further problems in most cases...not sure why though.
 
I used to have the built-in XP Firewall on all my networked PC's enabled, but am currently using McAfee Personal Firewall v8.2.122 on all (XP firewall disabled). I have tried disabling, uninstalling, allowing all the networked IP addresses, etc., but get the same result each time... I've also checked and re-checked the user accesses, with no luck.

Cheers,
HB
 
Try disabling McAfee & enable XP Firewall, then try. That way you'll know if McAfee is the culprit
 
Well what's puzzling me is that previously I had my laptop connected via a Cat5 cable and it was netwroked just fine. I've looked at the bindings for both the wireless NIC and the wired NIC and they are the same. I don't have NetBUEI installed on either of them. Checked the IP address, both are in the range 192.168.0.x as I would have expected.

I'm a bit reluctant to start installing extra protocols when there wasn't any need before.

I'm wondering if it has something to do with the wireless to wired bridge inside my router.

However, I went and bought a wireless NIC for my desktop yesterday, so I'm guessing once I've installed that I'll probably have no more problems!

The thing is, I'm doing a CISCO Network Engineer correspondence course at the moment so I'm going to see if I can get this fixed... it's good practice!!
 
Hiya cheetz007,
If you do manage to get it working correctly, please drop me a PM - I will continue to try from my side, but am running out of ideas quickly... :)
Cheers,
HB
 
Certainly will. If I figure out the problem I get the impresion I'll be the only one who ever did, so I don't hold out much hope!!!
 
Oh nuts! I've just started trying to diagnose the fault, I opened "My Network Places" and lo and behold, all my shared folders are there! Damn!

The only things that I can be sure that I did are:

1) Installed TCPIPV6, although I haven't rebooted yet so I can't imagine that's had any effect

2) I enabled tracing (netsh ras set tracing * enabled ). Again, I can't see how this would have affected anything.

Sorry I can't give a better explanation!

Although it proves (to me) what I've always thought - windows just needs the threat of a kick up the ass to work properly!

Now I'm scared to reboot in case it all disappears again!!!
 
Hi Tirion,
Not as far as I am aware - the Cisco has 4 static IP's set. The wireless access point connected to one of these static IP's is set as DHCP
Cheers,
HB
 
Well, I was right to be concerned! I've lost all my network drives again and I still don't have the faintest idea what is going on.
 
I'm not using a CISCO router - it's a Belkin. It has 4 wired connections and a wireless connection. I've got DHCP enabled but I've had a look and all computers are in the correct range - 192.168.1.*

OK, so there's another thing I changed - I used to have the router configured as 192.168.0.250, but it's now 192.168.1.254. And my DHCP is configured to use the range 192.168.1.1 - 192.168.1.253.

As I say, all equipment is on the same subnet, as far as I can tell.

One other thing I did was to switch on broadcast SSID - apparently Microsoft recommend that you do this since otherwise each machine will broadcast it's preferred SSID anyway and it actually makes it less secure, not sure if anyone has any views on this?

It was just after I did that that everything started working, but it's all stopped working again now, so obviously that wasn't the solution!!!
 
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