Hi, I hope one of you folks can help me with a real puzzler (at least for me):

Background:
I have a home network consisting of four XP Pro machines (3 laptops, 1 desktop). All are networked using a Linksys wireless router w/4 port switch, connected to DSL. The laptops are connected via 802.11 wireless w/WEP, the desktop is Ethernet.

All machines have file/print sharing enabled, NetBIOS over TCP/IP enabled and are part of the same workgroup. I have verified that the subnet mask is set up the same in the TCP/IP configurations.

All of the machines connect to the Internet fine, and I can get the laptops to see each other in a network search. I can see the laptops from the desktop machine as well.

I do not have ICF enabled on any of the machines.

==========Problem:
I want to share files on my desktop with the laptop users but am unable to get any of them to see the desktop. I am unable to ping the desktop from any of the laptops (it times out). I have verified the IP addresses are correct.

I can ping localhost from the desktop and again, all of the laptops as well.

I thought it might be my ZA firewall since the ZA log acknowledged that an ICMP had been received from the sending machine(s) but had been blocked. No problem, I disabled ZA. Same thing. So, I completely uninstalled ZA. Same thing, can't ping.

I then set up ICF on the desktop and enabled everything, esp. all ICMP activity. No dice.

I uninstalled the Ethernet card from XP (logically, not physically) and reinstalled it, and set up TCP/IP again. Nyet.

Finally, I reinstalled ZAPro and set up rules allowing all traffic from the network and IP range (redundant). Still can't ping the desktop, but the funny thing is ZAPro sees the ping and tells me it blocked it.

I am 99% sure it's something stupid, but I'm out of ideas. Any assistance would be appreciated!

That's about as strange a problem as we get here.

1) You might find the program SuperScan to be useful. Then again, maybe not.

2) Have you checked your router settings. Could there be a security feature that prevents wireless machines from pinging wired ones??? And are you using static IP addresses or DHCP?

Good luck

I'm using static IPs. Although I switched to a dynamic one for the offending machine and it made no difference.

I have looked at the router settings and there isn't anything jumping out.

do all four computers have the same username/password?

I had a very similiar problem where my desktop could ping but not be pinged,
I found stopping the Cisco VPN service under win2000 fixed this. (Or uninstalling Cisco VPN), Could that be an issue for you?