Geek help needed re home wireless networking

[mattSV]

Originally Posted by -Ralph-

Can you stick up screen shots of your windows firewall config on both machines, General, exceptions, and advanced tabs

OK - PC firewall settings:-

[mattSV]

Originally Posted by -Ralph-

Can you stick up screen shots of your windows firewall config on both machines, General, exceptions, and advanced tabs

Laptop:-

[mattSV]

Thanks for your help so far guys.

OK, as the geeks have already identified, looks like I have 2 unrelated issues.


1) User Permissions Issue
Can connect to network via LAN cables but cannot open files on each. Looks as though it is a Vista User Access Permissions issue.
On the Laptop there is currently just one user name -"A".
On the PC, there are 4 users, "A", "B", "C" & "D".
None of the users require a password, on either the laptop or PC.
I have set the drives on laptop and PC to 'Share' with permissions set for 'Everyone' and 'Network'
Networking & Sharing Centre settings are set as:-
Network Discovery ON
File sharing ON
Public folder sharing OFF
Printer sharing ON
Password protected sharing OFF
Media sharing ON

Strangely, when the two are connected via lan cables, I can access each other's media both via media player and ITunes 9 homeshare, however still cannot access specific files.

2) Second issue is that I cannot connect the laptop to the network wirelessly, even if I switch off Windows Firewall for wireless connection, however have no problems connecting the laptop to the interent via wireless

OK, if you can ping google via the wireless on your laptop, the laptop is not blocking anything, more likely the router is not responding to ping.

Just to be sure on the advanced tab on your laptop windows firewall settings, untick "wireless network connection" and click OK, then try

ping 192.168.2.1

again while connected via wireless, then if it makes a difference tell me and we'll dig into advanced windows firewall settings, but since you can ping google I think it won't make a difference. Don't forget to tick it again afterwards.

Now lets see if since you can ping google, if you can ping the desktop PC, not being able ping the gateway address may just have been a red herring because the gateway address, which belongs to the router, is not responding.

On the desktop go to a commmand prompt (black window where you type ping commands) and type

ipconfig

then find the IP address of the desktop machine here

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . :
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.2.x
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . :
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :

then on the laptop connected via the wireless type

ping 192.168.2.x

where x is the number you found in the ipconfig

Let me know the result, if it doesn't work, the problem lies with your router.

[mattSV]

Cheers Ralph, will give it a go but I will have to wrestle the laptop out of my daughter's hands first - might not be able to do that till later tonight

Will update as soon as I can

[mattSV]

IPv4 address for PC is 192.168.2.3

Unticked wireless network connection on laptop

Pinged 192.168.2.1 and got 'request timed out'

Pinged 192.168.2.3 and got 'destination host unreachable'

Pinged www.google.co.uk and got positive response (4 sent & received)

So, does that mean that the router is no good for a wireless network???

[mattSV]

Okay, I have just done the following:-

typed 192.168.2.1 into the browser which gave me access to the router set up utility. Through this, I discovered I had 2 passwords for the network, one for internet access only (e.g. ABC1), one for network & internet (eg ABC123).

Re-entered the full password on the laptop network & sharing centre, which now shows access as 'Local and Internet'.

Pinged the PC (192.168.2.3) from the laptop which was fine.
Pinged the laptop (192.168.2.2) from the PC which was also fine.

Can see both laptop & PC on the network, however still cannot open files - error message is:-
Windows cannot access \\PC\Folder
Error Code 0x80070005
Access is denied


So - I am thinking that the router issue might now be solved???

If so, just the access issues to sort out

[mattSV]

It is sorted!

Needed to set the folder shares to 'everyone', and then set the folder security to 'everyone'

Thanks for all your help Fizz, metalangel,TEC & Ralph.

[flymo]

this might be the little known fact that by default access permissions granted to a user account with a blank password are not permitted access across a network connection. Technically speaking, a user account with a blank password is better protected from network attack than one with a password, go figure.

http://www.tipstrs.com/tip/1841/Allo...th-no-Password

Originally Posted by mattSV

It is sorted!

Needed to set the folder shares to 'everyone', and then set the folder security to 'everyone'

Thanks for all your help Fizz, metalangel,TEC & Ralph.

Cool, no problem, just a process of elimination to narrow the networking issue down to the router. Well done on sorting the permissions issue. I don't know why the router manufacturers find it necessary to put in their own "clever features", 'cos it doesn't help them sell more routers, people prefer simplicity, job creation programme if you ask me. Glad you got it sorted.