hi all, I'm been having trouble setting up a lan between my desktop and laptop using a crossover cable, since putting XP Pro on my desktop. The laptop also has XP Pro and I used to be able to network the two OK when I had millenium on the desktop. So, both now have xp on and I have tried everything scoured the net and each time I thought I found some info that would get it working...no go. The problem is that the laptop sees itself in MSHOME and sometimes sees the desktop, BUT the desktop never sees the laptop and has only a couple of times seen itself. Even when one does see the other you can't access it as a message says that the network path can't be found or that I don’t have permissions, which I'm sure I have. I've set that and checked it in services in admin tools. When using the ping command, this is what i've found: ( I can attach the actual reports as i've copied them from the command prompt dos pox) here goes, From the desktop: i can ping the desktop IP address 192.168.1.1 i can ping the desktop name i can ping the laptop IP address 192.168.1.2 can not ping the laptop name message says: ping request could not find host laptop. Please check the name and try again. From the laptop: i can ping the laptop IP address 192.168.1.2 i can ping the laptop name can not ping the desktop IP address 192.168.1.1 message says: ping request could not find host desktop. Please check the name and try again. can not ping the desktop name message says: Request timed out. as far as I know the names, IP addresses and subnet masks (255.255.255.0 on both) are correct so I am open to any suggestions and help. thanks.

Do they belong to the same workgroup? You could try another cable. Also, if you have USB ports there is a cable called LAPLINK which may work for you.

even if they were in the diff. workgoups, he'll be able to ping to each other.try another cable, drivers, do you get the link light on both computers btw?

thanks for the replies ppl, they are on the same workgroup, tried 2 cables that both have worked on other setups, laptop doesn't have a link light, what drivers did you have in mind sergey? for the nics? i have the usb laplink cable already but I want the faster speed and just plain don't want it to beat me! I have to win :)

Hey! If you can ping the IP addresses of the machines but other resources aren't readily available, make sure your connections aren't firewalled. (XP has a built-in cheesy little firewall prog.) Also... make sure that you set up users with permissions on each machine. Making the user log in to the machine upon boot up helps some of the connectivity issues out there. Remember... XP is more like 2000 than ME or 98 in sharing network resources. Hope that helps! Joel IV

allready made sure that lan connection isn't firewalled, I'm using fat 32 file system as far as i know i can't change the perrmissions much, here's the weird thing, it worked for a minute this morning, everything saw each other accessed files/drives on the other pc (no changes were made) so I thought i would test it by unplugging cable and plugging back in. No more see each other. reboot both machines and same old prob, no see each other...frustrating stuff.

well i know now that my laptop & cable are working ok as I networked it with a friends laptop tonight and had no worries, without changing anything on my machine. has to be something to do with the desktop which is what i've thought all the way through. could something be wrong with the nic? i've tried new drivers for it but to no avail, device manager says it's working ok but that might not mean much?