I have been going nuts trying to network two computers at home using a work group, which I thought would be relatively simple. The goal is to share a USB printer on the laptop(XP Pro) so that both computers can have access to a printer. Here is a description of the two computers
The laptop- Dell Inspirion , running Windows XP Pro McAffee Antivirus
The Desktop - Dell , VISTA OS, McAffee antivirus
I have connected the computers above with a Linksys E3000 router
Here is what I have done to network the computers
1. Created the same workgroup name on both computers using a 7 character name consisting of alpha characters.
2. Used the network wizards on both computers
3. Disabled both the Mcafee and windows firewalls
4. I downloaded the update for Windows XP LLTD, but the update said it was not needed. because the service is newer than the update.
When I am on the VISTA computer I cannot see the shared printer on the XP Pro system because the diagnostics state that port 445 is blocked. But when I modify the hosts file on both computers with the IP address and host name, I can see the shared printer on the XP computer with the VISTA computer. The network map on the "Network and Sharing" Icon is wrong , the Xp Pro computer is at the bottom of the network map, but it is not connected to anything.
So what am I missing here? why is creating a network using a workgroup so elusive?
The laptop- Dell Inspirion , running Windows XP Pro McAffee Antivirus
The Desktop - Dell , VISTA OS, McAffee antivirus
I have connected the computers above with a Linksys E3000 router
Here is what I have done to network the computers
1. Created the same workgroup name on both computers using a 7 character name consisting of alpha characters.
2. Used the network wizards on both computers
3. Disabled both the Mcafee and windows firewalls
4. I downloaded the update for Windows XP LLTD, but the update said it was not needed. because the service is newer than the update.
When I am on the VISTA computer I cannot see the shared printer on the XP Pro system because the diagnostics state that port 445 is blocked. But when I modify the hosts file on both computers with the IP address and host name, I can see the shared printer on the XP computer with the VISTA computer. The network map on the "Network and Sharing" Icon is wrong , the Xp Pro computer is at the bottom of the network map, but it is not connected to anything.
So what am I missing here? why is creating a network using a workgroup so elusive?
My Computer
System One
-
- Manufacturer/Model
- Dell Studio XPS
- CPU
- Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz 2.67 GHz
- Memory
- 6 Gig