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Hello,

First of all, i have to say that i've tried MANY methods to fix this problem but none have worked. And my workgroup used to work a while ago, but then it just stopped working.

Here is what i have done:

Laptop - Cat5e (Crossover) - Desktop

The laptop is running XP Home, it can see itself in the Workgroup but not my Desktop.
-NET VIEW in CMD works and it shows itself on the server list.
-NBTSTAT -n works

My desktop is running XP Pro, it CANNOT see itself in the workgroup nor can it see the laptop.
-NET VIEW does not work
-NBTSTAT -n does not work (Failed to access NetBT driver -- NetBT may not be loaded)

Both machines:
-CAN ping eachother so they are "talking".
-have NetBIOS over TCP/IP enabled.
-are in the same workgroup (MSHOME).
-have names UNDER 15 chars.
-are in the same IP group (192.168.1.xx)

Can anyone shed any light on this situation and offer a fix please?
Someone said it could be a corrupted NetBIOS but i dont see how that could happen.

Thanks
MaGuSware™

P.S.

One thing i forgot to mention, my Desktop is connected to 2 networks.
-192.168.1.xx (Cat5e)
-192.168.0.xx (Wireless) (for internet)

Hi MaGuSware - Welcome to PCHF!!

Do you have static ip's assigned to the computers or do they get ip via DHCP?

Did your problems start when you first connected the wireless? When you say wireless - i take it you mean connect wirelessly to a adsl wireless router. Or are you using mobile wireless internet?

Yes, the IPs are static.

And originally when i connected the laptop to the pc using crossover the wireless network was already active, so introducing wireless is not the problem. And yes, its connecting to an ASDL Router via adapter.

Try this to access your files. This wont make your pc's show when browse network - it will just enable you to access the shared folders between the 2.

In Windows Explorer > Click Tools > Map Network Drive
In folder type the ip address of the pc you want to access followed by the folder that you have shared. You have to enter the folders share name. E.G.
\\192.168.1.5\sharedfoldername

Click Finish > You will be prompted to enter a username and password to log on with.

After you have done this the shared folder will be available when ever they are connected.

I have tried that before, i get "Network Location cannot be reached."

It would appear then that the ethernet adapter on the pc is faulty. Have you tried uninstalling completely from Device Manager and reinstalling it.

If not then try that, if it still doesn't work then I would get another ethernet card and see if you can connect successfully with that.

Couple of other things to try:

As your running home on your client and pro on your server - the home machine will need to have all the usernames on the pro machine manually put in (pro is domain based and home is workgroup based). So for example say you have the account slowpoke with password cookies on your pro machine - you need to manually put this into your home machine.

Also, somewhat obvious, but file and print sharing is enabled on your pro machine right? You have shares setup (right mouse click a folder and select share on my network) also, all the permissions are correct - it's not a case of JUST sharing with admin, needs to be read and write permissions for the user on the home machine too.

As the machines can ping eachother we can assume the issue is not network based and probably resides in the software somewhere. I take it you have all the correct ports open on firewalls? I usually have my firewalls set to receive all traffic on the internal LAN, although this can be a security hole if your running something like wifi.