Smooth Out Networking Quirks

[mycrisoft]

Just connecting computers to the same networking hardware isn’t always enough to ensure that they can communicate with one another. If computers aren’t showing up in Network Neighborhood or My Network Places, the most common cause is that they’re all assigned to different workgroups, so give each of them the same Workgroup name.

In Win98/ME, open the Start menu, choose Settings, click Control Panel, and double-click the Network icon. Choose the Identification tab, type the name you picked in the Workgroup field, and click OK before rebooting the computer. In WinXP, right-click My Computer, click Properties, choose the Computer Name tab, and click the Change button. Type the appropriate name in the Workgroup field and click OK before rebooting the computer.
There are times when it’s possible to see other computers on your network, but you still aren’t able to share files or a printer. If that’s the case, you need to enable the File and Printer Sharing feature on all your networked machines so that they can communicate with one another.

In Win98/ME, open the Start menu, choose Settings, click Control Panel, and double-click Network. If you don’t see an entry for File and Printer Sharing For Microsoft Networks, and click OK to enable file and printer sharing on that PC. Repeat this process on all of the other networked computers.

In WinXP, open the Start menu, right-click my Network Places, click Properties, right click Local Area Connection, and click Properties again. If you don’t see an entry for File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks, click Install, select Service, click Add, select Microsoft on the left, click File and Printer Sharing For Microsoft Networks on the right, and click OK.

To actually share a folder or drive (you can’t share individual files) in WinXP, right-click the icon for the folder or drive, click Properties, choose the Sharing tab. Select the Share This Folder on the Network checkbox, enter any other settings or names you want to, and click OK. In win98/ME, right click the folder, click Sharing, select the Shared As radio button, indicate the type of access you need, enter a password (optional), and click OK.
An alternative available in WinXP is to put everything you want to share in the Shared Documents which by default is accessible to everyone on the network. Double-click My Computer and double-click Shared Documents to access this folder.