RE: networking the XP system from hell! help!

Tech-Archive recommends: Fix windows errors by optimizing your registry

From: flyingdutch (anonymous_at_discussions.microsoft.com)
Date: 04/08/04 

Date: Thu, 8 Apr 2004 15:56:05 -0700

well, maybe together we can sort out OUR problems. I ran into the same error message, trying up to wire simply 2 PC's with a crossed cable. One being connected to the internet, and I wanted the other to acces the internet through the first one. I'll call them host and client from here on. So after installing the cards, running the network config setup on both systems, I got the same message on the host when trying to browse the local network (""Workgroup is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource"). So I started to search for a solution in KB , support sites etc. Finally I found that
1. you have to enable Netbios on TCPIP
2. The explorer service has to be running
3. you have to have Guest accounts enabled. (which was not my case).

I had to enable Guest accounts on both systems (which were not active). But... no luck. Still same problem. Further searching. Then I found a post from someone suggesting to install ipx. Which I did. And.... the error message disappeared!!! From both systems I could see the other one. (shared folders etc.). So I reran the network config tool on both systems (share internet connection). The host ended up, as expected, with 192.168.0.1. and mask 255.255.255.0. However, the client ended up with 167. something. The famous adress which you get when the sytem cannot locate any other system in the same workgroup. So I configured the client manually with 192.168.0.2 mask 255.255.255.0 default gateway 192.168.0.1.
Now I could ping from the host 192.168.0.2, but not vice versa. When I try to ping the gateway (192.168.0.1)from the client , I get a timeout. When I ping from the client his own address (192.168.0.2) it answers, which seems to imply that the IP stack works. After this I've went for 2 days through a whole sequence of trials and errors: switching cards, veryfying the lastets drivers, etc.etc. But still without success. It's driving me CRAZY.
Both systems are running XP Home edition. The only difference is, that the host is configured NTFS (with it's own particular horrible security system), and the other one has FAT32.
I think I've tried everything possible I could find, but still no succes.

if ANYONE could give me a clue, I would be VERY delighted, because I'm doing this for someone that really matters to me...

Please reply to timo.hofstee AT wanadoo.fr since I'm not very frequently following newsgroups..

Some more background info: Yes, the host can access internet through it's ADSL connection. I reinstalled the ethernet cards on both systems and even switched them (same result).

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