My Wireless Sharing Problem -- Specifics

I'll try this again, and I won't be vague at all. ;)

I have a home office network consisting of 7 computers, 6 of which run Wiudows XP Pro SP2. The other one is Windows Vista Ultimate (the machine I am on now). It's patched daily automatically by our friends at Microsoft.

I use Bright House/RoadRunner for my cable modem ISP.

File and print sharing is set up so that all computers can print to and share with two other machines. The router I was using before moving to wireless was a LinkSys BEFSR81, firmware revision 2.51.1 It was a perfectly functioning network for what I wanted to do. Then I moved to wireless.

The changes:

I installed a LinkSys WRT54GS, version 6.0, with firmware revision 1.52.0. I have two Dell Latitude laptops with built-in wireless capability. On all other machines I installed LinkSys PCI wireless adapters, model WMP54GS (with SpeedBooster).

The setup worked nicely as far as throughput and reliability were concerned. I had a problem with dropped connections on the router, but I found the cause and eradicated the problem (it was being caused by one of the laptops going into sleep mode while connected to the network -- why it screwed with the router itself I don't know, just that it did).

In the network neighborhood on the XP machines they could all see other, and all computers showed up on the Vista network map as being in the same network.

WPA-Personal with TKIP encryption is the protection scheme. Again, no problems with that.

I made sure all of the adapters were operating in infrastructure mode instead of ad-hoc.

I soon discovered that NONE of the machines could communicate with each other in terms of file and printer sharing. The exception is a Brother MFC-665CW printer/fax with wireless support. As long as the Brother control center software is installed on each machine, they can print to it. They cannot, however, install via Network Neighborhood or through the Windows printer setup in the control panel. It is only through the software they are able to do so.

After spending 24 hours researching the problem on the 'Net, I finally decided to disable wireless on a few workstations and hook them up again via CAT-5 only. The WRT54GS still would not allow the machines to share. At last, I removed the WRT54GS and reinstalled the BEFSR81. Voila, I had file and printer sharing back, even with the Vista machine.

I believe I have isolated the problem to the WRT54GS OR perhaps the setup of the individual wireless adapters. On the laptops the wireless worked out of the box -- all I had to do was enter the security information. When I installed the wireless adapters for the PCs, I did nothing out of the ordinary in setup. Again, general connectivity to the router and to the Internet was smooth as silk. But internally, the machines will not transact with each other.

Getting back to the wireless router (WRTG54GS), I will conclude by saying that it shipped with the most current firmware (according to the LinkSys Website) and I have made absolutely no changes to the routers optional settings, except, of course, to enable the WPA-Personal security and to enable SSID broadcasts.

There it is. I have to make this work via wireless, or I have to take all this stuff back to Office Depot for a return. Please help if you can.

Thank you.

Reply to
The Rejuvenated Techie
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Make sure all of your machines have the same workgroup name. I don't use Winblows so I can't tell you how to do that in M$ world. Make sure all machines get their address via DHCP. Go into the WRT's setup screen by typing 192.168.1.1 in a browser. Look around for settings that may twig you to the blockage. Mine works flawlessly with a Mac and several Linux boxen on the inside. You'll get it. Others may have other helpful ideas...or not

Reply to
the_bmac

On Thu, 5 Apr 2007 14:06:46 -0400, "The Rejuvenated Techie" wrote in :

Troubleshooting File and Printer Sharing in Microsoft Windows XP

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Reply to
John Navas

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With all due respect, it is obvious you did not read my entire message. There is ZERO problem with file and print sharing with a wired router. I isolated the problem to the wireless setup.

Reply to
The Rejuvenated Techie

Briefly disable the personal security encryption. Keep the SSID. See if they can connect. That will at least eliminate a possibility. You might also back everything off to Wireless 'b' temporarly to establish a baseline. I note that you did say that all computers have Internet connectivity. My suggestions were to just get a base line.

Reply to
Mellowed

On Thu, 5 Apr 2007 15:08:52 -0400, "The Rejuvenated Techie" wrote in :

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I did read the entire (lengthy) message. I suggest you read and follow the advice from Microsoft. And not just blow off those trying to help you.

Reply to
John Navas

You must forgive the length, but the devil, it seems, is in the details, and many here love the devil. I gave brevity a shot and it didn't go over well.

I'm not blowing anyone off. But if you read the message, you should clearly see that when the old router is put back in, Microsoft Networking works fine. Put the wireless router in, and nothing works.

I'm wondering if the wireless network name should be the same as the workgroup name in Windows?

Reply to
The Rejuvenated Techie

Answer: No.

Reply to
The Rejuvenated Techie

Tried all of that, including G only. No luck.

I'm calling LinkSys now. If anyone is interested in the final answer, let me know. Otherwise, thanks for the help.

Reply to
The Rejuvenated Techie

On Thu, 5 Apr 2007 16:47:51 -0400, "The Rejuvenated Techie" wrote in :

That _doesn't_ mean the Microsoft advice isn't worth following!

I'd be more sympathetic if you said, "OK, I tried that, but it didn't help." Instead you just didn't bother.

Irrelevant.

Reply to
John Navas

I'm an MCSE four times over -- I could have written that document. What I am not an expert on is routers. And I can say with 100% metaphysical certitude that the network file and print sharing works FLAWLESSLY when the BEFSR81 is running. Put the wireless router back in, and it's "network path not found" hell.

Today I've done all of that stuff with the Windows personal firewall, file and print sharing wizards, protocol tweaking, even adding NetBIOS just for s**ts and giggles.

There is something in that router that is blocking the network's ability to share files and printers. Aside from reinserting the LinkSys BEFSR81, I also tried a Cisco 1601 and a hub -- that worked fine too.

I've got a ticket with LinkSys on this. I'm too damned tired to deal with it tonight. Hopefully the Indian I talk to in the morning will have the answer. Although I suspect he'll have me run wizards and such before he finally believes it's the router.

Reply to
The Rejuvenated Techie

On Thu, 5 Apr 2007 23:13:17 -0400, "The Rejuvenated Techie" wrote in :

For less time than you spent on these messages you could have actually run through that document. But no, you're (drum roll) an MCSE. Awesome. Good luck to you.

Reply to
John Navas

You probably got a sore throat from reading the original message, it was so long. Of course, it is still obvious you didn't read through the whole thing, otherwise you wouldn't be ranting and raving over this Microsoft document, a document, which whether you like it or not, I probably know more about than you. And leave it to jealous pricks like you to get tight over someone mentioning their credentials. Bugger off.

Reply to
The Rejuvenated Techie

Your original post did not indicate what you've done to troubleshoot your LAN. A few things to check with your WRT54GS in place:

  1. Is AP Isolation disabled? (Hint - that's a router feature.) 2. Are all PCs/NetPrinters in the same subnet? (IPA and mask) 3. Do all PCs have DHCP client enabled? 4. Does the router have DHCP server enabled? 5. Does anything else in your LAN have DHCP server enabled? 6. Do all PCs use the same workgroup name? 7. Can every PC ping every other PC (and the router) by IPA? 8. Can every PC ping every other PC by name? 9. Do all PCs get their DNS server address automatically?
  2. Do you have one PC hardwired to the router? (You really should.)
  3. Did you disable the wired NICs on the PCs to switch to WiFi?
  4. Do all PCs have the same default gateway IPA (192.168.1.1)?
  5. Is MAC address filtering disabled?

Note that you should not simply believe that the router as shipped has the normal default settings; it usually does, but checking is standard troubleshooting practice.

Reply to
Bob Willard

On Fri, 6 Apr 2007 07:51:14 -0400, "The Rejuvenated Techie" wrote in :

Reply to
John Navas

Listen to me now, believe me later, as they say...

I don't know why this is, but XP machines with personal firewalls enabled that can normally be accessed via the wire CANNOT, in most instances, be accessed via wireless. Call me full of shit, but I've seen it many times. Firewall the router -- not the PC. It's cheaper to just do the router firewall than to do several machines.

Bang Bang

Reply to
Maxwell Edison

On Fri, 6 Apr 2007 15:01:46 -0400, "Maxwell Edison" wrote in :

Others perhaps, but I've never seen that problem with the Windows XP Firewall. That said, I always disable firewalls while troubleshooting _any_ networking problem. 'Course there's really no need to tell the anonymous "Rejuvenated Techie" that, since he's an MCSE not just once, twice, or even three times, but _FOUR_ times over! :)

Reply to
John Navas

Have you ever fiddled with McAfee's Personal Firewall? It has a range of IP addresses you can set that it will "trust" as far as inbound and outbound connections are concerned. It works nice on wired networks. But there is something about a wireless network that makes it completely flake out. When it detects the network, it will pop up a window asking if you "trust this network?" You select yes and you think all will be cool. But in my experience, about 8 times out of 10, it just won't let that machine share files and printers. Another common troubleshooting problem is that by default McAfee disables ICMP (for PING) on whatever machine it's installed.

Bang Bang

Reply to
Maxwell Edison

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