Networking a Neanderthal.

[Joe]

I've been playing around with computers of late.

Largely by accident, I managed to create a network of my XP-equipped desk-top and Vista lap-top.

However, I can't get the W98se one to play. It and the lap-top can see each other but when I try to access the lap-top from the desk-top I keep being told I've entered the wrong password.

Trying the other way, ie Vista to 98se, it prompts for a password and after entering that precisely sod all happens - not even an error message.

It's something I'm playing about with for fun rather than through any sort of need but I'd appreciate any tips.

Cheers

Joe

[Skywave]

I am confused about what you have there.
You have a desktop with Windows XP as the O/S; you have a laptop with Windows Vista as the O/S. Yet you make a reference to one machine that has Windows 98SE (presumably as the O/S). Are there three machines in that group?

Al.

[Joe]

Sorry, Al; yes that's right. A Vista lap-top, an XP desk-top and a W98se desk-top.

The first two will talk to each other fine, it's just the '98se one which is being stubborn.

I haven't tried getting the XP and '98se ones to communicate as I'll need to dig another monitor &c out to use them both at the same time.

- Joe

[Skywave]

Ah! - O.K. I understand: thanks.

So, next set of Qs.: we need to know something about your network infrastructure. What type of network is it: peer-peer or a server-client type? Are you using wi-fi for any connections? Are you using a router with Ethernet over CAT 5 cabling in that mix somewhere?

AL.

[Joe]

The truth is, Al, that I don't really know.

My lap-top and the XP desk-top both connect to the internet via wi-fi adaptors. It was only when I happened to have them both switched on at the same time that I found that they could 'see' each other and after setting up sharing permissions those two can exchange data fine.

I have set the username and password to be the same on both.

As I said in my OP, the other desk-top m/c, the one with W98se on, can see the lap-top but when I enter the password to access it it comes back with an error saying it is incorrect.

- Joe

[Mark Hennessy]

If you're using Microsoft networking, which I'm sure you are, you need the following:

1. All machines to have the same username/password.
2. All machines to to be in the same Workgroup.

It's normally the latter that causes the problem. Especially if it prompts for a username/password when you try to connect...

Does your Win98 machine prompt for a username/password when you start it up?

Windows 95/98 are somewhat different to XP/Vista, so it's not surprising that's where the incompatibility lies...

Networking is surprisingly complicated - layers upon layers.

Stepping back:

Presumably, when you browse the network using Windows Explorer, you can see all the machines? But when you try to double-click the Win98 machine, it doesn't work? If that's true, it means all machines can see each other at some basic level - using TCP/IP or NetBIOS. It's best to use TCP/IP if you can, BTW, and you probably are...

If TCP/IP is working correctly, you should be able to find the IP address of every machine on your network, and then you should be able to "ping" each machine from any other. There's probably no point moving on until this is working. If you can't ping certain machines, try ensuring that the firewalls are correctly set on all machines. To be honest, if you're behind an ADSL router which uses NAT (they mostly all do) then a firewall isn't really needed on the machines, so it's OK to disable it. That should enable you to ping everything.

Once the basic networking is in place, the OS stuff has to be right. Various Microsoft protocols are employed to enable people to browse networks and access shared resources via Explorer. It's all a bit of a mess, actually...

For example, when you browse a network, what is actually happening? Well, of all your machines on the network, one of them is the "browse master". The other machines know about that, and they speak to the browse master machine to establish what Microsoft machines are known about. Whenever a new machine joins the network (i.e. boots up), an election is called, and if the new machine is more "powerful" than the current browse master machine, then this new machine becomes the browse master...

All that is a long way of saying that using Explorer to browse the network relies on a fair amount of stuff to work, and that's stuff that isn't always 100% reliable.

Far better to access network resources using "UNC pathnames". So, if you have shared out some stuff on a machine, you could get to it by typing "\\machine_name\share_name" in the Run box or in the address bar of a Windows Explorer window. E.g., suppose you've called one machine "DAC90", and on the machine you have created a share called "ServiceData", you could type "\\DAC90\ServiceData" in a Run dialog, and that should pop up an explorer window showing the contents of that folder... Of course, one can make desktop shortcuts to do the same thing...

The basic mechanism that allows machines to be accessible using a UNC pathname can be tested using the ping command. Rather than "ping 192.168.1.2", you can type "ping DAC90", and the machine should be able "resolve" the machine name into an IP address.

As I say, it's all about layers. And the more you peel back these layers, the more you want to cry. It's like a great big onion...

[Joe]

Thanks, Mark. I think I might have found something in post #33 here.

I'll play more tomorrow as I've got too much Bridge Bitter in me at present

Cheers

Joe

[Mark Hennessy]

That's interesting - I don't recall running into that with Vista and '98, but it's been a couple of years since I had Vista here. Thanks!

[Skywave]

Joe: a 'lateral thinking' idea - which may not be possible for you, and if it is, will probably involve quite a lot of work (which may be worth the end result), but . . .

Can you arrange all three machines to use the same O/S? In my experience, that makes configuring and managing a network one hell of a lot easier.

Al.

[Joe]

The short answer is "No."

I don't have a master disc for Vista or XP, just image back-ups of the hard drives, and the one with Windows 98se would struggle to run anything newer. I fully agree though that that would be the best solution.

It's one of those things where my stubbornness is over-ruling common-sense as I haven't really any use for the old '98se m/c anyway.

I'd actually de-commissioned it but then, when looking for something else, found a thing called KernelEX which allows it to run some XP/W2000 applications which includes FireFox 3. If I could get the lap-top to talk to it I could use its anti-virus software to scan the hard disk periodically as modern anti-virus programs won't run on '98se, and would slow it down too much if they would. That said there does seem to be a consensus of opinion that modern viruses wouldn't know how to do their thing on it either.

Beyond that it's all about learning and getting experience on things that don't matter is handy for things that do.

- Joe