Do I need to upgrade from XP home for File and Printer Sharing ?

"newsfroupie2005" replied :

John,

Thanks for your interest, your point has been noted...

Thanks...

NF

No, but its much more basic in XP home. I have a mixture of XP Home and Pro, and happily share files and printers between the machines.

"Mark McIntyre" kindly replied :

Then "newsfroupie2004" replied :

Many thanks for your reply Mark...

I like the sound of "more simple" if this equals "keeping it simple"

This "simple" wireless lark sure does get VERY complex VERY quickly...

I am still currently wading through the good advice in response to my OP...

No immediate successes, yet, but I WILL persevere.

Currently I am successfully emailing my non confidential stuff between computers for printing !

(and CDr'ing anything remotely sensitive, although I am considering email encryption as another interim solution over the CDr's if anyone has some advice on this)

I still believe that secure WEP wireless networking will be the answer in the end... eventually...

Someone who has replied here, said it took them three weeks to engineer the solution, so my target is to beat that !

Best wishes...

NF

"newsfroupie2004" wrote in news:dT0Ed.6499$ snipped-for-privacy@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk:

That could be a problem for you if you don't set rules on the personal FW to allow metworking on the MS Networking ports and open those ports to LAN traffic for the private side DHCP IP(s) than can be issued by the router. For the time being, you should drop the FW(s) on the machines until you know you have the machines networking.

You don't need the XP Networking Wizard to make the XP machines share resources. All you have to do is put the machines in the same Workgroup name.

NO you don't.

NO

On the NIC(s) Network Interface Cards, make sure you have the following services asnd protocols and remove anything else off the NIC(s):

1) Client for MS Network 2) File and Print Sharing for MS Networks 3) Internet TCP/IP protocol

That's all you need on the XP Pro and Home machines on the wired and wireless NIC(s) to make them share resources.

The link may help you too, because it's a simple setup to share the resouces between the XP Pro and Home machines wired or wireless. Anything you have done with the Wizard you need to undo or delete and do it manually.

Duane :)

"newsfroupie2005" then replied :

Again, Many thanks Duane, for your continued interest and support...

I will attempt some more configurations, as per your suggestions.

I will also have a look at the link you have given, and then will report back with my results...

This "simple" wireless lark sure does get VERY complex VERY quickly...

I am still currently wading through the good advice in response to my OP...

No immediate successes, yet, but I WILL persevere.

Currently I am successfully emailing my non confidential stuff between computers for printing !

(and CDr'ing anything remotely sensitive, although I am considering email encryption as another interim solution over the CDr's if anyone has some advice on this)

I still believe that secure WEP wireless networking will be the answer in the end... eventually...

Someone who has replied here, said it took them three weeks to engineer the solution, so my target is to beat that !

Best wishes...

NF

"newsfroupie2005" wrote in news:Y9lEd.7388$ snipped-for-privacy@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk:

You say you have Norton's FW active on the machines. Do you know what the Windows networking ports are and if they are blocked by the personal FW and you have not set rules on the FW to open those ports, the machines will not be able to communicate?

The networking of two machines both being XP is not that difficult and I suggest that you do it with both machines using a wired connection and understand what you're doing before proceeding to the wireless. If you cannot get it to work with the connections being wired, then it's just adding to your confusion with the wireless.

Duane :)

Duane :)

Duane Arnold wrote in news:Xns95D9D02E93BFAnotmenotmecom@204.127.204.17:

Everyone has skirted arounded the answer without explaining it, or what specifically to do to solve. Here it is:

Windows resource sharing relies on communication on ports 137, 138,

139. Unless you have specifically added the IP addresses of your PCs to the Norton Internet Security Trusted Zone, this communication will be blocked and you will not be able to share files or printers.

Unless you are unduly paranoid, I suggest that you should add the router's entire network to the Trusted Zone. See here for how to do it:

Select 'Use network address' with (if your router is at 192.168.1.1 for example) 192.168.1.0 and 255.255.255.0 as the network address and subnet mask.

Hope this helps

NF: Yes I do.

NF: No I do not

NF: Probably

NF: I have not

NF: more than likely

NF: Experience probably makes it much easier

NF: A good idea but still a learning curve for me

NF: You are not wrong there !

NF: Many thanks again Duane for your sterling work and support for the "wireless novice" at this end...

NF: I am trying... I really am !!

NF: With all your help I know I can do it in less than my three week goal !!!

NF: Best wishes... NF

"Richard Perkin" kindly replied :

"newsfroupie2005" then replied :

Richard,

Many thanks for your interest and support...

I was beginning to wonder about my sanity...

You are correct about there being many suggestions without "how to do" in simple terms. (KISS)

I had been searching for information on what ports I need to deal with, but what do I now do with your information :

Your Symantec weblink did not give any guidance about ports.

I tried allowing a "network address/submask" range in to the trusted zone within NIS's FW

i.e.:

IP Address: 192.168.1.100 Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0 Default Gateway: 192.168.1.1

with the unfortunate following result (xphelp/fixing networking or web problems/scan your system) :

IPAddress = 192.168.1.100 (FAILED) Pinging 192.168.1.100 with 32 bytes of data: Request timed out. Request timed out. Request timed out. Request timed out. Ping statistics for 192.168.1.100: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss)

So what have I done wrong ?

Best wishes...

NF

"newsfroupie2005" wrote in news:QvnEd.7425$ snipped-for-privacy@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk:

Most personal FW(s) have a setting called Allow Internet File Sharing or something similar. That's a setting that can be enabled on the FW to allow the FW to automatically set itself to open the Windows networking ports on the FW. And since you're behind a NAT router, enabling that feature which I would think Norton has will not be a problem because the machines are behind the router. If Norton has that feature, then enable it and the FW will be configured to allow sharing of resources between machines. Duane :)

Get a USB thumb drive, much faster and re useable,

"newsfroupie2005" wrote in news:QvnEd.7425$ snipped-for-privacy@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk:

Defining IP addresses in the Trusted Zone allows all communication on all ports to occur. That's all you should need to do.

There is traffic on other ports in a normally working Windows system as well, which is why I suggest you use the Trusted Zone feature, rathern than any specific setting for file and printer sharing which Norton Personal Firewall may have.

The IP address should be 192.168.1.0 With the subnet mask you give, this will allows all communication on all ports between all devices in the 192.168.1.x network. You need to do this on each PC.

Hope this helps