I have a wireless home network with a new Netgear Rangemax wireless router and cable modem. This pc is attached directly to modem/router, another XP Home PC and 2 XPHome laptops are connected wirelessly. Internet connection is excellent for all computers, but file sharing comes and goes for no obvious reason. (Had much the same problem with previous older Netgear router.) Directories are shared correctly, firewalls are not blocking that I can see, and, as I said, sometimes some can connect to others, most often I can access the wireless machines' files but they can't access me.

But suddenly we have a new issue...All machines are blocked from seeing the other workgroup members, though I can access files via the network neighborhood shortcuts. When I click "View workgroup computers" I can see only my own in the list, though all have the correct workgroup set up.

We operate a home Internet business full time and this issue is driving us crazy and wasting much time with no results. Please help!

Diana Ward

One possibility is that you do not have the maximum connections allowed on the share set to the maximum of 10.

If this is the problem, then go to start > Control Panel > Performance and Maintanance > Administrative Tools > Computer Management. In the computer management window, expand the System Tools node, and then click the Shared Folders node. Click Shares. In the right pane, right click the shared folder for which you want to determine the maximum number of concurrent users and then click Properties.

In the "User Limit" Group box, set the maximum number of users that will be connecting to the shared folder. By default Windows XP should have that set at 10... if it for some reason isn't you would have problems connecting. My material here reccomends a maximum of 10, but if you needed more than that you can give it a try.

If this is unreliable because of your hardware, you can try mapping a drive by going to right clicking on start > Explore > Tools > Map Network Drive.

There could be more things causing this but that's what is coming to my mind... I am assuming you have set up user accounts... i.e. start > control panel > user accounts

Oh and user accounts have to be correctly set on each local machine as you are in a workgroup and the all use local accounts. Hope that helps...

There are 2 types of file sharings in XP pro, check here on any misconfiguration..

Simple File Sharing

Share File with User/Group Permission

Hope helps..