College dorm networking problems....

[Uconn411]

I was setting up a Network card for a friend (Kingston KNE111TX), and it connects to the internet fine. But on the school's network, it cannot "browse the network." I can do a search and find other computers on the network, but I cannot access their files (though I know they are shared). I have TCP/IP, IPX/SPX, and NETBEUI installed. I have the Network card installed properly, and have the primary network logon as Client for Microsoft Networks. It is a Dell 550mhz with 128mb of ram, and WinME installed on it. As a side note, I do not get to login when WinME loads. I know that for Win98 and W2k pro you do have to login, and I think this might be the problem.

 

[Cnuke]

Are you logging into the server or into ME?

 

[JonB]

If your college LAN requires a login, then you should be getting a login prompt that asks for a domain along with Userid and password. If it is peer to peer, then I have usually found the problem to be related to the workgroup name you defined being different than everyone else's. I assume you have File and Printer sharing installed as a network protocol. Please say yes.

Being able to reach the internet is actually pretty easy. Connecting to a LAN, being authenticated, and seeing all its resources is more difficult.

Your lack of login for WinME indicates to me that you, at some point, entered a User name with no password. Because it has no password, it won't ask you again, so you think it doesn't care, but it does. If the user name you entered is not an "authorized" name on the LAN, the LAN will ignore you. To fix, try logging off. Then when you log back in, use the name your college expects. If you don't know how to log off, you can usually force the issue by deleting or renaming the "*.pwl" file that stores the login information.

 

[celeritas]

Are you using the same workgroup, subnet mask, and IP range as the other computers?

Another possibility is that the PC is using a different default protocol (TCP/IP, NetBEUI, etc.) than the PCs you're trying to connect to; for security reasons they may have unbound client + file and printer sharing from TCP/IP and bound them to NetBEUI instead... Just a thought.

 

[Uconn411]

I do have file and print sharing enabled. I know that I should be getting a login prompt to enter a userid and password, but I am not. I think I am going to try and delete the .pwl file, and see if it asks me for the login prompt. I believe that it was once part of a home network, so it may have been previously configured before. I do have the network settings setup as the college specifies.