Unable to access main PC on network

Morning all. New to network problems.

Read through many posts hoping for a solution to my problem but no luck.

I'm running a wired home network of a linksys wag54g. Main pc is XP Pro sp1 and is wired to port 1. Port 2 is a laptop (XP Home) and port 3 is a remote desktop (XP Pro sp1). The workgroup is Mshome and all pcs see each other in My Network Places. The main pc can access the shared folders on each but both other pcs cannot access the main pc.

Message comes up as \\Main is not accessible, you may not have permission etc. Contact Admin.

I am the administrator and sole account on the main pc and no passwords have been assigned.

Pcs 2 & 3 can communicate happily. Neither can access pc 1.

All firewalls disabled apart from the Linksys internal FW. All antivirus disabled.

Until a couple of months ago, all was OK and I'm not aware of changing anything.

Could it be anything to do with Security Updates being active? It feels like I'm locked out of my main pc.

If I try to share a printer by running the wizard, the printer is seen but I'm asked to enter a password to proceed. No passwords have been assigned.

All pcs can access the internet.

I'd appreciate any suggestions or pointers.

thanks

 

try networkmagic it's quite good, helped me out of a few tight spots, (in my signiture) good luck

 

it is not good practice to use networking without a password. Windows expects a password to exist even if there isn't one. Hence why you can't connect to the printer.

Just to make sure:

Can you confirm you are sharing a folder on your main computer?
Can you confirm that your firewall allows remote connections?

Go onto one of your other computers and try to connect to the main computer by typing:

//main/c$

or

//<IP address>/c$

example:

//192.168.0.1/c$

 

Thanks for the reply.

I have the shared documents folder on the main pc set to 'shared'. The ips of the other two pcs are entered into Zone Alarms trusted zone but still no joy. Even with ZA disabled.

When I type the address into No2 pc I get the message \\main not accessible, you do not have permission etc. Logon failure, the user has not been granted the requested logon type.

Driving me mad. They can see 'main' but can't access it and I can't find how to allow them.

Enough for tonight. Off to bed.

 

i'll leave you in mega's more than capable hands, cos he knows a :swear: lot more than me, i just draw from my eperience with my pc, but mega knows a :swear: lot

 

Are you using Windows XP Service Pack 2?

If that's the case, when you disable Zonealarm, the built in Windows Firewall is automatically activated!

Go to control panel > Windows Firewall > Click the Exceptions tab > Tick the box next to 'file and print sharing' and press apply then OK

 

Check the permissions you have provided on all the sharing folders.

 

Try to ping the ip address of PC1 from PC2 with firewalls on, if its pinging then your problem is not about firewalls. As Karanislove said check the permissions fo the folders.

*To access the permissions you have to disable the simple filesharing, go to Control Panel > Folder Options, click on the View tab, scroll down to the bottom and untick the Use Simple File Sharing.
*After youve done that bit. Right click on the folder you want to share, go to the Sharing tab, and turn off and on the sharing.
*After sharing the folder, go to Security tab, look for Everyone, highlight it and choose whatever permissions you need.
If youre not able to see Everyone in the Group or username's box, do this, click Add then Advanced, click Find Now, then search for the Everyone in the box below, highlight it and press Ok twice.

Godd Luck!