Vista can't find Vista on LAN

S

satwar

New Member
I have both a Vista 32 & Vista 64 Acer laptop on the same LAN. Both connect well with the Internet.

My problem is that when I try to see the other computer's Public folder to share a file, I can't even find the other computer in the "Network" window, only the router and the computer I'm working on.
 

My Computer

System One

satwar said:
I have both a Vista 32 & Vista 64 Acer laptop on the same LAN. Both connect well with the Internet.

My problem is that when I try to see the other computer's Public folder to share a file, I can't even find the other computer in the "Network" window, only the router and the computer I'm working on.
Click to expand...
have you turned on public folder sharing and file sharing on both laptops?
 

My Computer

System One

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Normally with wireless networks one would start at the router (set the SSID, Passphrase,...etc) and work toward the devices, but this is Vista we're talking about. And since Vista couldn't find an ass at a donkey farm, muchless a computer on a network, I had to change my approach when working with Vista,... ass backwards. Try this method. Click on "Start", "Network", "Add a wireless device". Allow Vista to search for wireless device. Disregard any devices that it may find, and continue with "I want to add a wireless device or computer that is not on the list using a USB flash drive", at the bottom of the window. Choose "Add the device or computer using a USB flash drive". Click on "next". You should see your local terminal listed, if not, "Create a new Wireless Network Profile". Set your SSID and Passphrase. You may want to "copy and paste your choices to notepad for future reference. Save your settings to your USB flash drive. Insert the USB flash drive into the other laptop and run the wireless setup wizard. Now open your routers web base page...192.168.1.100 for linksys...you'll have to find the right one for your particular manufacturer. If your router settings are stored locally or web based, make the new chages to the SSID and Passphrase. Restart all computers and they should all be able to view each other. Good Luck.
 
Last edited:

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System One

Well that sort of kicked it into gear. At least I can see the other computer. Unfortunately when I double click on the other computer icon, it says cannot connect
 

My Computer

System One

Hi Satwar

Do you have identical user names on each laptop?

Are both on the same workgroup?

Basics I know but sometimes missed :)
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • Operating System
    Windows 10 Pro x64 Latest Release Preview
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer G276HL 27", (DVi) + Samsung 39" HDTV (HDMI)
    Screen Resolution
    2 x 1920x1080 @50Hz
  • Manufacturer/Model
    Real World Computers (Custom by Me)
    CPU
    AMD FX8350 Vishera 8 Core @4GHz
    Motherboard
    Asus M5A78L-M USB3
    Memory
    32GB [4x8GB] DDR3 1600 MHz
    Graphics card(s)
    Asus nVidia GTX750TI-OC-2GD5 (2GB DDR5)
    Sound Card
    ASUS Xoner DG + SPDIF to 5.1 System + HDMI
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung 32" TV
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    Internal
    Crucial CT256MX100SSD1 256GB SSD,
    Seagate ST2000DM001-1CH1 2TB,

    External (USB3)
    Seagate Backup+ Hub BK SCSI Disk 8TB
    2.5/3.5 Hot Swap Cradle, USB3 + eSata (client HDDs)
    NAS 4TB
    PSU
    Aerocool Templarius Imperator 750W 80+ Silver
    Case
    AeroCool X-Warrior Red Devil Tower
    Cooling
    Hyper103 CPU, Rear 120mm, Front 2x120mm, Side 2x120mm
    Internet Speed
    68 MB Down 18.5 MB Up
    Other Info
    Six Sensor Auto / Manual Digital cooling (Fan) control with Touch control Panel
Yes I use the same user names on each computer and both computers belong to the workgroup "WORKGROUP"

I should mention that I have no problem browsing a shared folder setup on my Win98SE machine attached to the same LAN with either Vista laptop.
 

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System One

satwar said:
Am I a lost cause ?
Click to expand...

Never admit defeat :D

If all the basic settings are correct then the next question is what if any Firewalls are you running?

it may be worthwhile switching off the firewalls on both machines and seeing if that changes things.

If you see an improvement with no firewall then this will have to be set-up to allow sharing - how depends on the firewall involved
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • Operating System
    Windows 10 Pro x64 Latest Release Preview
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer G276HL 27", (DVi) + Samsung 39" HDTV (HDMI)
    Screen Resolution
    2 x 1920x1080 @50Hz
  • Manufacturer/Model
    Real World Computers (Custom by Me)
    CPU
    AMD FX8350 Vishera 8 Core @4GHz
    Motherboard
    Asus M5A78L-M USB3
    Memory
    32GB [4x8GB] DDR3 1600 MHz
    Graphics card(s)
    Asus nVidia GTX750TI-OC-2GD5 (2GB DDR5)
    Sound Card
    ASUS Xoner DG + SPDIF to 5.1 System + HDMI
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung 32" TV
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    Internal
    Crucial CT256MX100SSD1 256GB SSD,
    Seagate ST2000DM001-1CH1 2TB,

    External (USB3)
    Seagate Backup+ Hub BK SCSI Disk 8TB
    2.5/3.5 Hot Swap Cradle, USB3 + eSata (client HDDs)
    NAS 4TB
    PSU
    Aerocool Templarius Imperator 750W 80+ Silver
    Case
    AeroCool X-Warrior Red Devil Tower
    Cooling
    Hyper103 CPU, Rear 120mm, Front 2x120mm, Side 2x120mm
    Internet Speed
    68 MB Down 18.5 MB Up
    Other Info
    Six Sensor Auto / Manual Digital cooling (Fan) control with Touch control Panel
Thanks for not giving up on me :)

I'm using the Vistat firewall on both machines, and turning them off makes no difference.

Another symptom of the problem is that if I try to look at my own Public folder starting from the network, the CPU gets very busy and locks the computer up. I can however readily look at my own Public folder starting from C: drive with no problem.

Both laptops behave the same and both browse on the Internet with no problem. But peer-to-peer is deadly. If I restore hard drives to Acer factory default condition, the peer-to-peer works fine, but sooner or later it breaks. It seems to be an awfully fragile system. The only hunch I have is that it breaks after performing a disk defrag.

I don't know much about pinging, but I've tried before and the Vista PC's do respond, although the response time for the initial ping can be slow. This may be another symptom of the problem. The router always responds with little or no delay, as does my Win98SE PC.
 

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Are you using the built-in defrag within vista or a 3rd party defrag? a 3rd party solution may not be fully compatible with vista

to improve network responce, one thing you could try is to disable IPv6 support on the network adaptors - this should not have any effect but it has solved problems in the past for no apparent reason
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • Operating System
    Windows 10 Pro x64 Latest Release Preview
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer G276HL 27", (DVi) + Samsung 39" HDTV (HDMI)
    Screen Resolution
    2 x 1920x1080 @50Hz
  • Manufacturer/Model
    Real World Computers (Custom by Me)
    CPU
    AMD FX8350 Vishera 8 Core @4GHz
    Motherboard
    Asus M5A78L-M USB3
    Memory
    32GB [4x8GB] DDR3 1600 MHz
    Graphics card(s)
    Asus nVidia GTX750TI-OC-2GD5 (2GB DDR5)
    Sound Card
    ASUS Xoner DG + SPDIF to 5.1 System + HDMI
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung 32" TV
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    Internal
    Crucial CT256MX100SSD1 256GB SSD,
    Seagate ST2000DM001-1CH1 2TB,

    External (USB3)
    Seagate Backup+ Hub BK SCSI Disk 8TB
    2.5/3.5 Hot Swap Cradle, USB3 + eSata (client HDDs)
    NAS 4TB
    PSU
    Aerocool Templarius Imperator 750W 80+ Silver
    Case
    AeroCool X-Warrior Red Devil Tower
    Cooling
    Hyper103 CPU, Rear 120mm, Front 2x120mm, Side 2x120mm
    Internet Speed
    68 MB Down 18.5 MB Up
    Other Info
    Six Sensor Auto / Manual Digital cooling (Fan) control with Touch control Panel
Yes I'm using Tuneup 2009 as a defrag recently, but the problem ocurred before using it.

When I turn off Vista Firewall, Network Discovery cycles off & on by itself. Very sad situation, very unstable. Had to turn back on.
 

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System One

Oka, I took a stab in the dark and reset firewall to default settings and the nonsense with oscillating network discoery stopped.

I turned off both vista firewalls and the two Vista computers can still not see each other
 

My Computer

System One

Ok the basic network check list ...

All on same network segment (eg. 192.168.1.x) or set from DHCP in router
All on same workgroup (eg. workgroup)
same user on each PC with a password.
At least one file/folder shared on each PC
network discovery switched on (all PCs)
File and printer sharing switched on (all PCs)
public folder sharing turned on (all PCs)

From what you have already said all the above is set correctly
and
Although you can see the other vista pc you receive an access error when attempting to open the shared PC.

as a test.

Create a folder on one of the PC's with a file in. use the advanced sharing to share this folder with everyone having full control of the folder and file(s),

Right click on the folder and select the security tab, Select the everyone user and click "edit", click on the full control check box, and OK out of the dialog(s).

Check if you can access the new shared folder from the other PC

if it does not show in the network list you can try typing "\\computername\share" into the start menu search

If you can see this new folder then the problem lies with the security permissions on the shared files.

Windows95 /98 only used share permissions to control access, with later versions of windows that use the NTFS file system there are an extra set of permissions that need to be set - by setting these to everyone as with this test it should now allow you to see the folder correctly

sorry for such a long post but if we can isolate the problem the full cure should be forthcomming :D
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • Operating System
    Windows 10 Pro x64 Latest Release Preview
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer G276HL 27", (DVi) + Samsung 39" HDTV (HDMI)
    Screen Resolution
    2 x 1920x1080 @50Hz
  • Manufacturer/Model
    Real World Computers (Custom by Me)
    CPU
    AMD FX8350 Vishera 8 Core @4GHz
    Motherboard
    Asus M5A78L-M USB3
    Memory
    32GB [4x8GB] DDR3 1600 MHz
    Graphics card(s)
    Asus nVidia GTX750TI-OC-2GD5 (2GB DDR5)
    Sound Card
    ASUS Xoner DG + SPDIF to 5.1 System + HDMI
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung 32" TV
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    Internal
    Crucial CT256MX100SSD1 256GB SSD,
    Seagate ST2000DM001-1CH1 2TB,

    External (USB3)
    Seagate Backup+ Hub BK SCSI Disk 8TB
    2.5/3.5 Hot Swap Cradle, USB3 + eSata (client HDDs)
    NAS 4TB
    PSU
    Aerocool Templarius Imperator 750W 80+ Silver
    Case
    AeroCool X-Warrior Red Devil Tower
    Cooling
    Hyper103 CPU, Rear 120mm, Front 2x120mm, Side 2x120mm
    Internet Speed
    68 MB Down 18.5 MB Up
    Other Info
    Six Sensor Auto / Manual Digital cooling (Fan) control with Touch control Panel
Wow, I had a moment of insipration. My Vista computer names were in the form XXXXX-LAPTOP. I changed to xxxxxlaptop and the network discovery seems much more effective. It sometimes takes a few minutes but I can see the other Vista computer in the network window very consistently now.

I also created a Test folder on C: on one machine and was able to read the files I put in this folder with no problem from the other Vista computer. Excellent !

But..... I still have a problem with looking in the Public folder. Both computers lock up as Explorer goes nuts. How do we figure out what's wrong with the Public folder. The security groups are many, perhaps one is causing a problem. I'd like to eliminate all groups except "Everyone", but I'm not sure what the repurcussions would be. What are "Service", "Interactive", "Batch", "System", "Creator Owner" doing in the security tab ?
 

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System One

Hi,

glad to hear things are improving :)

the many different permissions you see are related to system functions - eg interactive covers the permissions for uses accessing the files remotely - best to leave these as is.

I've checked out the public folder on a couple of vista installations and the important ones to check are

Everyone
Administrators
System

all of which should have full permissions

check that the sub folders and files also have these permissions

one way to ensure this is to use the advanced button on the security tab then the change permissions - at he bottom of this tab you will see two check boxes

perms.JPG

this will allow you to automatically set permissions for the complete tree

with these permissions set you should be able to read these folders
 

My Computers

System One System Two

  • Operating System
    Windows 10 Pro x64 Latest Release Preview
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer G276HL 27", (DVi) + Samsung 39" HDTV (HDMI)
    Screen Resolution
    2 x 1920x1080 @50Hz
  • Manufacturer/Model
    Real World Computers (Custom by Me)
    CPU
    AMD FX8350 Vishera 8 Core @4GHz
    Motherboard
    Asus M5A78L-M USB3
    Memory
    32GB [4x8GB] DDR3 1600 MHz
    Graphics card(s)
    Asus nVidia GTX750TI-OC-2GD5 (2GB DDR5)
    Sound Card
    ASUS Xoner DG + SPDIF to 5.1 System + HDMI
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Samsung 32" TV
    Screen Resolution
    1920 x 1080
    Hard Drives
    Internal
    Crucial CT256MX100SSD1 256GB SSD,
    Seagate ST2000DM001-1CH1 2TB,

    External (USB3)
    Seagate Backup+ Hub BK SCSI Disk 8TB
    2.5/3.5 Hot Swap Cradle, USB3 + eSata (client HDDs)
    NAS 4TB
    PSU
    Aerocool Templarius Imperator 750W 80+ Silver
    Case
    AeroCool X-Warrior Red Devil Tower
    Cooling
    Hyper103 CPU, Rear 120mm, Front 2x120mm, Side 2x120mm
    Internet Speed
    68 MB Down 18.5 MB Up
    Other Info
    Six Sensor Auto / Manual Digital cooling (Fan) control with Touch control Panel
Yes, Administrators, System & Everyone are all set for full control of this folder and all subfolders and files.

P.S. The one thing I don't have is passwords assigned to each user. I've assigned passwords before however with no joy.
 

My Computer

System One

Wow, a successful resolution. For some reason there were two hidden folders in my Public folder, "Public Desktop" & "Favorites". Explorer kept crashing when I tried to explore the hidden "Favorites" folder, so I deleted it.

Voila, no more problems browsing the Public folder. Funny thing is that both my Vista computers had the same problem. Go figure. :)
 

My Computer

System One

The final Slam Dunk on this issue:

I couldn't believe it but I just swapped in a Linksys router and pulled out my D-Link router, and the PC's all see each other within a second. I tried the entire lineup of D-Link routers and none worked any better.

Just thought I'd let others know, that Linksys seems more Vista network friendly than D-Link, I'm stunned. D-Link works well for Internet but terrible on LAN between PC's.

THanks for the help guys !
 

My Computer

System One

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