Morning Chaps and Chapettes, I hope that somebody can help me and a freind sort out a networking problem we are having on my freinds computer (running XP) when trying to connect it to another computer via an ethernet LAN card. His computer will resolutely refuse to connect to the workgroup of the network (the MSHOME workgroup). His computer will recognise everything - it recognises and allows you to edit setting for the LAN card, the Netwrok, recognises whether that cables are unplugged, allows you to change the IP setting for the network, and even allows you to bridge the network to another network on the computer (we have subsequently removed the other netwrok to see if this was the cause of the problem, to no avail). The second computer seems to be working fine - it can see thew MSHOME workgroup, can see my freinds computer in the workgroup, but can't access it. I have set up a few home netwroks in my past (I did one on the computers in my house about a weeka go) and am fairly sure I know what al the setting are for and how they should be set. I have never had any difficulties in setting upo a network. We have tried everything we can think of to see what the cause of the problem is - changing the IP and Subnet mask numbers, trying different cables, changing the LAN card to a different one, changing the driver, trying different PCI slots, trying to connect to a different computer. We ever went as far as to uninstall XP and try it with Win2000. No luck. I am beginning to think his MOBO is mashed up in some way. And we so want to play Counter-Strike. Can anybody help. Thanks for reading such a long post.

Do u have a fierwall? I had that problem with Norton Firewall. What you do is go in to the wizard and go to the network and set it up then you should be ok

No, there's no Norton or Mcafee or anything like that. The only software that loads on start up is his funky controlling software for his big sound card.

WinXP-Home Edition has a built-in firewall acessable through Network Conections in Control Panel, under Advanced Tab. Don`t know, but maybe XP Pro has this also. As I`m a recent XP newbie, hope it helps.

Well, tendrousbeatie, I am having a similar problem. I can access everything in a network that is possible, except file sharing from the host, which is an xp pro. You can take whatever files you want off of the xp pro host, but you can't put anything onto it. It gives me a 'network is busy' error. But everything else works fine and my friend and I play Mechwarrior 4 over the lan :).

Hi Alan, Our situation seems a bit worse than that, as the primary computer can't access the other one at alll, either via file sharing; network connections; ping; nothing. And the other computer can see it in the list of workgroup computers, and can ping it, but can't access anything on it. # Somebody help or I'll cry like a girl.