Networking Woes

TL DR

So I'm trying to copy WoW from one machine to another, so I can format and transfer it back to avoid the lengthy re-install. I also have music and other things that I want to transfer over, but I can't get the computers on the network to see one another. XP Desktop can see XP Laptop as well as itself. XP Laptop can only see itself, as can Vista Desktop. I'm not sure how to proceed, other than burning my files onto a DVD and taking a hammer to my router.

Raere

What do you mean can't 'see'? Can you ping them?

TL DR

Raere wrote: »

What do you mean can't 'see'? Can you ping them?

Sorry. I mean in the Network Places/Shared Folders the other computers don't show up.

theSquid

Welcome to the world of Windows file sharing. What firewalls do you have on each computer? Are you sure they're all set up for sharing files? I'd probably point my finger in the firewall direction.

brandotheninjamaster

Have your tried "\\COMPUTER NAME\c$" from the run line yet?

bowen

brandotheninjamaster wrote: »

Have your tried "\\COMPUTER NAME\c$" from the run line yet?

You may have more luck with "\\[IP ADDRESS]\c$" than name resolution if you can't see it in network neighborhood though.

You may want to copy to the vista machine rather than copy from the XP machine because I'm sure at least one of the ways will say "can't find this PC on the network".

acidlacedpenguin

make them all in the same workgroup. . . on XP machines it should be in your system window, I've spent weeks trying to find how to do that in vista to no avail

Eat_Fire

If you have Norton Antivirus the firewall feature can block Windows File sharing. So make sure thats turned off.

jayabalard

At a guess, is the laptop connected wireless? If so, it may not be able to see anything else inside of your network due to the default wireless security settings of some (most?) routers. You might have better luck if you connect it with a physical Ethernet cable.

What versions of XP and/or vista are you running?

A couple of pointers:

• Make sure that both computers are actually connected to the network; this might seem obvious, but you'd be surprised
• Make sure that both computers have file/printer sharing turned on.
• If you're using home, then you'll want to make sure they're all in the same workgroup; if you have xp professional (and vista business/ultimate), then you'd need to either be set up in the same workgroup or same domain.
• Make a Shared folder on the target computer (the computer you want to copy stuff to); make sure that you give full privileges to everyone so that the other computer can write to it.
• Get the ip addresses of both computers; you can use the ip address in place of the computer name. You'll need the local ip address, so don't be going out on the internet to get it; you can get that by going to a command prompt (run cmd) and typing ipconfig.
• On the computer with wow, try going to run and then running \\TargetComputerName\sharedFolderName or just \\TargetComputerName

To test basic network connectivity: go to a command prompt and type "ping <computerName>" or "ping <ipaddress>" ... if you're connected you'll get response times, if not then it will time out.

if you have file and printer sharing turned on, and you can't go to \\TargetComputerName or \\TargetIpAddress then you're being blocked by the firewall on one or both computers.