Small Office Network Win XP setup not working

[scoots987]

I have two WinXP machines. One Home edition and the other Professional. I've set them up enough to see each other. My problem is on the non-sharing PC(workstation1), I am having intermittent problems. Everytime I reboot or startup I do not have an immediate connection to the other PC. I placed an icon to open windows explorer on the C drive of the server. After booting up, I have to click this icon MANY times before it finally sees the other computer. If I go through the motions from twice to ten times clicking this icon I eventually get connected to the server.

This is a basic configuration using Microsoft networking. I never get an immediate connection to the other computer. Does any one know what would cause these unexpected results? I initially created the connection through MAP network drive. When I try to create it again, the only way I can establish the connection is to type in path "\\servercomputer\dell drivec". I can never browse the network. I always say Reconnect.

BTW, I hate XP's new interface. Everything is more hidden now.

Scoots987

[BipolarBill]

http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/troubleshoot/specificbroblems.htm

[AllGamer]

Actually that's really simple.

Make sure you have setup NAME RESOLUTION.

DNS, or even WINs will do, in this case.
be on the same subnet

i'll suggest to only install TCP/IP, and kill every other protocol, if you are not experienced in networking.

do not use NetBeui.

do you NetBIOS

make sure the NIC are in the same bandwitdh, say both on 100 mbps or both on 10 mbps

some times Auto Speed detect settings for the NIC might not work properly, and it requires to be setup manually.

hmm... try that for now, there are prenty of other stuff to check.

[animeal]

AllGamer, what do u mean by Name Resolution? Also, how do u check ur IP address and subnet mask on any other os besides XP? On xp its pretty ezy, not sure how to do it on other OS. Also, in order to share drives, do subnet mask or IP addresses have to be similiar? If so and how much, can someone give me an example plz? What happened was my XP system was set to specific IP address. So when I wanted to share files between that computer and the other one, I had to make my other computer have the first 3 parts of IP address match the first one. Same with subnet mask, but than if I wanted to go online, I have to set my IP address to 'Automatic Set' where it would automatically choose an IP addres. But now that I set the XP (1st system) to Automatic Detect, I cannot for some reason get access to my other computer.! :( Plz help! :(

[animeal]

By the way, I am using 2 100/10 NIC's, and using cross over cable which worked fine before I changed My first system (win xp) to detect automatic IP instead of what it had in their.