Hello all, I have a new HP laptop running XP and latest SP and I'm trying to network to a Compaq DeskPro running Win2k with latest SP, I have just spent many hours trying to get the two to connect - having a real nightmare. I am connecting via a bog standard 10 port hub, I have enabled file sharing, I have enabled TCPIP, NetBios on Desktop and NetBios over TCPIP on XP Laptop and I have created a workgroup with the same name on both P.C's. I can see the desktop from the laptop in windows explorer but when I try to connect it says 'Not accessable, you may not have permissions' but the strange thing is when I ping the desktop it doesn't find it and what's even stranger is that I cannot see the laptop from the Desktop in explorer bit I CAN ping it!! What's going on!? Any help would be recieved with much gratitude as I've tried everything I can possibly think of.

How do you ping it? By computer name or IP Address? Try manually assigning IP Addresses to each computer. In the Windows 2000 computer, go to Start>Network and Dial-Up Connections, right click on "Local Area Connection" and click Properties. Click Internet Protocol and click Properties. Click Use the following IP Address, and enter the following: IP Address: 192.168.1.1 Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0 Don't specify anything for the default gateway. Next go into the XP machine, click Start>Control Panel>Network Connections, right click on Local Area Connection, click Properties, then click Internet protocol (TCP/IP) and then click Properties. IP Address: 192.168.1.2 Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0 default gateway: 192.168.1.1 This may not be correct. This is just a suggestion. The only networks I've messed with are wireless 802.11b/g wireless networks.

Hi Ray96, I had tried previously to ping with names and ip addresses with the same resulting problems. Also just tried your suggestion above but alas no joy. Any other ideas??????

This may not help either, but DISABLE the Windows Firewall on the XP Machine. Don't configure it to allow the connection, but totally disable it altogether. The way the Windows Firewall is set up is very confusing to me, and when I think I have it disabled, it's still enabled. Try that and post back.

Another thing you could try, is on the Windows 2000 computer, go to Start>Run, and in the box, type \\<ip address of laptop> and press enter. So, IF your laptop's IP was, say, 192.168.0.3, you would type \\192.168.0.3 and press enter. So try that after you've completely disabled the laptop firewall and post back.

I'm having exactly the same problem - any ideas?