Laptop won't connect to home network

[fmueller]

My wife has got a new laptop from work, and I am having trouble making it see my home network. My wife used her old laptop to print wirelessly to a laserjet I have connected to my desktop, and the pressure is on me to make that happen again with the new laptop...

My ISP is AT&T U-verse and the whole network runs via their residential gateway (RG). I have a bunch of computers in the home, and on all of them (except for the new laptop) file and printer sharing work like a charm; meaning they all see each other via the network, I can transfer files from one to the other wirelessly, and I can print from all of them to the laserjet on my desktop.

- my desktop, XP Pro, Ethernet connection to RG
- guest desktop, XP Pro, wireless connection to RG
- my laptop, Vista, wireless connection to RG
- wife's old laptop, XP Pro, wireless connection to RG
- wife's new laptop, XP Pro, wireless connection to RG

My wife's new laptop can access the Internet via the RG, and the RG also sees that computer. However, my wife's new laptop sees none of the other computers under my network places, and none of the other computers see wife's new laptop. I am assuming that file and printer sharing are disabled on my wife's new laptop, but the Windows firewall settings look as follows:

http://www.fmueller.com/images/file-sharing-problem.jpg

The only thing that's ruled by a group policy is SSL VPN. Could that be a problem?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Many thanks

Frank

[MAGIC]

Whats her workgroup/domain?

[fmueller]

Not sure what you mean. I am getting forgetful these days, but I don't recall having to specify that for the others machines on the network :scratch:

[RyderOCZ]

Are all the other machines in the same workgroup? That was all he asked. If not, then don't worry about it.

If this laptop is from work, maybe they changed a policy at the office, compared to the old laptop?

[fmueller]

Are all the other machines in the same workgroup?

Yes, they are.

If this laptop is from work, maybe they changed a policy at the office, compared to the old laptop?

That was my hunch - presumably some heightened security BS. However, my wife has asked their computer support staff at work - a university - and they say file and printer sharing is enabled on the new laptop, and what I am trying to do should work. They even had a look at the laptop. Problem is, it doesn't work :hrm:

I just bought my laptop a few weeks ago, and had it setup for this in a matter of 5min, even though it runs Vista with all the other machines running XP Pro. Funny thing is, my wife's laptop has a Vista license sticker at the bottom but runs XP Pro. I am guessing that the university bought the thing including Vista, but put XP Pro on it :shakehead

Frank

[Nate_LapT]

do they have a internal proxy set that you cant access remotely?
My uncle had a laptop that was like that, only way I saw fit to get it to work was disable their settings which would screw it up at work. dunno if the it dept there got it going or not though.

[RyderOCZ]

ok... have you tried leaving it on the network for a day or so?

[fmueller]

OK, I had a bit of a look into that workgroup/domain issue you guys brought up, and that seems to be indeed at the core of the problem. My computers at home are all in one workgroup, but the new laptop is part of a domain. It seems a computer can't be part of a workgroup and a domain at the same time - or can it?

I wish I could check on her old laptop how that problem was solved - as far as I can remember it never even came up. Maybe the domain thing is new at her work. At any rate, she has taken the old laptop away. I'll have to see if I can get a hold of that thing again and have a look - unless you guys have immediate suggestions how to solve this dilemma?

Many thanks

Frank

[RyderOCZ]

I will be honest.. no experience here. Never tried a cross workgroup/domain thing.

Now.. what permissions do you have on the printer share? Since she is on a domain, try setting the printer share on your PC to make sure "Everyone" has permission to use it.
That should mean that anyone who is on the network (which you seem to have no issue with) can print.

[MAGIC]

Now.. what permissions do you have on the printer share? Since she is on a domain, try setting the printer share on your PC to make sure "Everyone" has permission to use it.
That should mean that anyone who is on the network (which you seem to have no issue with) can print.

Yes, if the laptop has network connectivity you should be able to allow guests to use your printers on your workgroup. The only annoyance about this is she will have to put in a username and password every time to connect to print.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/networking/learnmore/domainjoined.mspx

Heres a how to that you might find useful.

[fmueller]

Thanks MAGIC, for that link. Seems to be exactly what I am looking for. I'll have to work through it and will report back how it went.

As an aside, my wife asked the computer support at work to completely wipe the HD of her old laptop before giving it to her students. They did it right away...

[RyderOCZ]

As an aside, my wife asked the computer support at work to completely wipe the HD of her old laptop before giving it to her students. They did it right away...Damn their efficiency !! Any other request would have taken the obligatory "we will get to it, when we get to it" ;D

[fmueller]

Thanks to MAGIC's link, I was able to sort out the issue. The problem turned out to be exactly what I had suspected all along - file and printer sharing was disabled. I had checked in the firewall settings, and all was clear there, but you also need to enable it under 'folder options', which you can access via the control panel:

Click Start, click Settings, click Control Panel, and then click Folder Options.

On the View tab, select the very last item Use simple file sharing (Recommended) check box if it is not already selected, and then click Apply, and click OK.

I mention here how to do it, because I found Folder Options directly in the control panel, while the Windows How To Do says it should be under Appearance and Themes, which this laptop doesn't have.

This kind of stuff can usually be sorted out by running the Network Setup Wizard, but it can't be run on a computer that belongs to a domain. So you have to do it manually, and for that you need to know exactly where to tick the right boxes :wink:

Greetings and many thanks for all your help.

Frank

[MAGIC]

Glad we could help get you going. :cheers:

[Nate_LapT]

ah, whoops, I miss read your issue,
glad to see it got worked out though.