Wireless LAN configuration problem

Question

I have 4 Dell machines at home (Dimension 8200,Dimension 4500,Optiplex 270,and Inspiron 8200 Notebook),connecting to DSL via a D-Link 614+ router.The Optiplex connects directly via Ethernet cable,the rest wireless with D-Link 120 USB adapters and a Linksys card for the Notebook. I finally configured all these computers to appear in a LAN , they all appear in the 'workgroup' and can access shared resources - except the Optiplex, which is unfortunately where the to-be-shared printer is connected. If I 'click' on it , an error message appears referring me to the network administrator (unfortunately clueless me), with 'network path not found'. The Optiplex and the Dimension 8200 run Windows XP Pro , the others Windows XP. (By the way, running the Windows Network Wizard simply results in the machine losing internet and network connection completely,with 'bridges' appearing in network connections, and was completely counterproductive,despite multiple permutations).

volcano11 · Answer

Either (1) you have not enabled file and printer sharing on the Optiplex and designated drives or folders as shared resources or (2) you have not properly configured the Windows firewall, or any third party filewalls running on that machine , to allow local network traffic.   Steve

drkpfr · Answer

Additional information : The Optiplex can access the other machines,just like they can access each other , but none of the others can access the Optiplex - even though it appears in the workgroup when it is populated ( so presumably it is 'seen' on the LAN) - with 'access path not found' as above. As far as I can tell, the machines are all configured the same (of course I am overlooking something ....).Unfortunately, that has defeated my purpose of sharing the printer. What's the magic click?

drkpfr · Answer

Thanks. It was the McAfee firewall - kept it up on the machine after spyware caused such severe problems I had to reinstall Windows.

Networking, Internet, & Bluetooth

Was this post helpful?