Networking Windows 2000 to Windows XP

[Charles]

No doubt this quite simple, but I'm stuck nonetheless.

I have two XP machines and one 98 machine currently and successfully networked through a wireless router - and from the router everything is connecting to the internet. I've gotten far enough that I'm networked with the router and out to the internet. From an XP machine I can see the 2000, but not the other way. Where do I go from here?

And the Windows 2000 laptop is company issue, so I can't upgrade the OS.

[Mausau2000]

If u want 2 u can use the win xp home network program.

[David Harrison]

Not sure if you've resolved this but here's what I'd do.

First, check that the Windows XP firewall is off, the XP firewall sucks fairly badly and may stop your 2000 laptop from accessing file/folders/etc. on the XP machine.

Second, if the firewall is off and that didn't work, try just typing "\\name-of-PC" (no quotes) into the address bar of any explorer window. You may or may not have known about that, but a lot of people still think that the PC's need to be in the same workgroup and accessed via My Network Places --> View Workgroup Computers. Also "\\xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx" will work too if you haven't named the PC's, although if they are assigned IP's automatically from a DHCP server (I'm assuming that your router can operate as a DHCP server) then they may change, therefore you would need to find out the other computers IP address each time.

Third, if it's still not working then simply try pinging the XP machine from the laptop. Start --> run, then type in "command" (no quotes) and then in the command prompt type "ping name-of-PC" or "ping xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx" (again, no quotes). Just to see if you even get a reply from the XP machine. If you get a reply then I don't know what's going on, and if you don't then it is most likely some firewall operating on the XP machine that is blocking access.