Husband's/Wife's PCs Don't Communicate
My computer is running XP Home and my wife's runs ME. Her PC has a floppy, a CD drive and a HP all in one printer/scanner/copier/fax. Mine has a CD, a CD/DVD writer and a HP printer. I would like to have them networked so I can access her floppy, or the all-in-one when needed.
I did my research before starting and made sure that they should be able to be networked. I have the cable hooked up (it is the one where the ends are reversed) and they have been networked before. I must have made some changes to services or something because now they are not networked.I went back into msconfig and clicked the Normal startup button to reset all the drivers. I have gone back thru the network wizard and tried to set up a home network all to no avail. I used the XP CD on the ME PC and did the "Perform Additional Tasks" routine.
The computers are named and the workgroup is the same on both computers.
I had an IT person (my son) try to network them but he was unable. My son says that XP doesn't like to be networked with ME and that I should reformat the ME PC and install XP on it. I had rather not do that unless necessary. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I am wondering if there is something in the registry or somewhere that I could delete so that I could start over clean? ---Harold
First, a couple of common stumbling blocks: Make sure
you've temporarily disabled all firewalls and similar software; they can get in the way of
trying to establish (or re-establish) a networking connection. Also,
make sure that "print and file
sharing" is enabled on both PCs. Need info? Search "file sharing" in the XP and
ME's box's Help files; or use these searches:
http://www.google.com/search?q=file+sharing+xp
http://www.google.com/search?q=file+sharing+ME+millennium
We've also covered easy ways to zero-out network settings several times in recent issues. Here's the short form: Use hardware manager and "uninstall" any networking cards or devices. Reboot, and let Windows rediscover and install the "new" hardware. Optionally, but a good idea, run a Registry Cleaner to dig out any now-obsolete entries left over from the previous setup. Do this on both the XP and the ME box.
The next steps are ones you've already done; but with the settings freshly reset, they'd probably be worth repeating: On the XP machine, right click on "My Network Places" and select Properties; "Network Connections" will open. In the normal two-pane view, you can click on "Set up a home or small office network" and follow the prompts. (If "Set up a home or small office network" isn't visible, use Start/Help and search for "Set up a home or small office network" in the Help system.) At the end of the Network Wizard, you'll be asked if you want to make a network setup floppy; say yes. Take the floppy to the ME machine and run it to set up that PC in a way that *should* get it talking to the XP box.
If not, then you might suspect the cable; because it worked at some point in the past isn't a guarantee it hasn't been damaged in the interim, and they're relatively cheap to replace. If I were you, I'd also look at an inexpensive hub--- they can cost as little as $10 or so for a basic, 4-port 10/100 ethernet unit--- because their connection/activity lights can be a useful diagnostic in themselves; and because it gives you more flexibility than a plain crossover cable.
Finally, the information here http://www.windowsnetworking.com/ may help.
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