File and Printer Sharing

[Callum]

Well, I'm finally up and running stably on my new computer, and it feels great.

So while I'm in the techie mood, I thought I'd finally figure out why I can't seem to do the above. Or rather, get you guys to figure it out



I have three computers networked together by means of a wireless router. I'm assuming this is why the computers can't ping or access each other, like the tutorials all say they should...

The most useful thing would be to be able to share folders over the network, the printer isn't really necessary. But just in case, the printer is connected to one computer on the network only, not the router, and that can't change.

Any ideas?

[shamrock_uk]

I can't help you with the process of sharing in Windows, but i can tell you that there is absolutely no reason why you shouldn't be able to ping each computer and see the shared printer too. I have a similar setup involving a wireless router and things should work fine.

In short - something's either gone funny in Windows or you're making an error you don't realise.

I'll start with the obvious (my apologies) - all IP address have probably been assigned like this:

192.168.1.1xx but it's entirely possible your router puts them somewhere else (eg) like 192.168.1.x (ie starts at 2 instead of 100).

If you connect to your router, usually by doing http://192.168.1.1 you can see where it assignes your IP addresses.

You can dole the IP addresses out using DHCP (simplest), but you may prefer to have fixed IP addresses so that printer stays at a single address.

You should be able to see your local IP addresses on each machine by going to a DOS prompt (in start -> programmes -> accessories -> Command prompt or similar) and then typing ipconfig -all on WinXP IIRC.

[Felix The Assassin]

Well you have just all there is to know. Only small issue is that the rig the printer is hooked to must be at least powered up in order to print share. Cost to effect ratio is pretty steep for a home router/printer network.

[Callum]

Yeah, I'm not sure whether sharing the printer will work, but file sharing would definitely be useful. At least then when I DO want to print, I don't have to log onto one computer, email it to myself, download it... etc.

My router address is 10.1.1.222, which I can access fine, and the other machines have static IP addresses of 10.1.1.122 and 10.1.1.124.

This machine is 10.1.1.123. But I can't seem to find the other computers. Maybe I'm pinging wrongly... How is it done?

[Zebodog]

You need to make sure that any and all software firewalls are letting your network traffic through.
If the router can see them, but your PC can't and your PC can access the net, then the problem is with the remote PC's.

If you are using XP, and you haven't already, run the Home Network setup wizard.

Printer sharing will work well, as long as the machine it's connected to is running and logged into Windows. Of course network enabled printers are quite inexpensive these days (at least in Canada) so that would eliminate that problem.

[Hivetyrant]

Yep, as Zebodog said, disable the Windows firewall (for now) and run the network setup wizard (Start->Run->"netsetup")