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How do I use Window's workgroups on a college LAN? I have a switch, cant make it work.

Leros

Leros

Lifer
I'm in a college dorm room with a desktop and a laptop. I want to be able to share the printer on my desktop with my laptop, and transfer files back and forth.

I get one ethernet port in my room, so I bought a switch so I could plug in both computers. Both of my computers are running XP Pro, so I set the workgroups to the same thing, restart the computer, but nothing shows up under "View Workgroup Computers".

In My Network Places, there are a few folders from other machines on campus, which is odd because my workgroup is a fairly long random number. I have tried other workgroup names and my comptuers will not connect and the same random folders are showing up in My Network Places.

Any idea what is going on? In the past I have plugged my computers into my own router, so this is a bit different.
 
Workgroups in XP are just a convenience for organizing computers. They don't really affect sharing.

Did you set your Printer for Sharing in the "Printers and Faxes Control Panel"? Be sure to set some Security, too, to limit who can print to it, or you may get a surprise some day.

The fastest and most reliable way to "find" your shared printer is to carefully note the name of the PC where the printer is attached (PCName), and the "Sharing Name" (PrinterName) of the printer itself.

Use the printer's UNC name: "\\PCName\PrinterName" to quickly add it to your laptop's Printer list.

Share folders on your two PCs similarly.
 
How do I make it so only my laptop can connect the printer? I know how to do that in 2000, but not XP.
 
I can't connect to the printer. I tried to browse for it, but nothing popped up so I typed in the address manually, \\PCName\PrinterName, of course filling in the appropriate info. It didnt find anything.
 
Can you get to the network from both computers? Some campus networks configure the dorm jacks to only allow one computer plugged into it. Getting a router instead of a switch would be a quick, easy, and secure way of getting both your computers on the network and blocking out campus computers from using your printer and file shares, and would overcome the single computer limit imposed by some campus networks.
 
Yah, both computers can access the network. The IT department says that you we bring a switch and have as many computers as we want, but we still only get xGB a week for all of our computers combined.

It is against policy to have a router, that could get me kicked off the network. So I can only have a switch.
 
Have you checked Windows Firewall to make sure the ports are open? (there should be a check next to File and Printer Sharing)
 
Yes, it is open on the computer that has the shared printer. I tried opening it on the other computer as well, but that did not change anything.
 
Rule 1:
Get out of the dorm room and party it up.....College is one of the best times of your life, get out and enjoy it. Dont just sit in and watch tv and play on the PC. Join a fraternity, the payoff from pledging is well worth it.
Rule 2:
Rinse lather and repeat.
 
Originally posted by: Brazen
Can you get to the network from both computers? Some campus networks configure the dorm jacks to only allow one computer plugged into it. Getting a router instead of a switch would be a quick, easy, and secure way of getting both your computers on the network and blocking out campus computers from using your printer and file shares, and would overcome the single computer limit imposed by some campus networks.
Click to expand...

Check with the IT department at your university or look at their KB if they have one online. They will tell you exactly what you can do. Do not just plug in a router.
 
Originally posted by: tfinch2
Originally posted by: Brazen
Can you get to the network from both computers? Some campus networks configure the dorm jacks to only allow one computer plugged into it. Getting a router instead of a switch would be a quick, easy, and secure way of getting both your computers on the network and blocking out campus computers from using your printer and file shares, and would overcome the single computer limit imposed by some campus networks.
Click to expand...

Check with the IT department at your university or look at their KB if they have one online. They will tell you exactly what you can do. Do not just plug in a router.
Click to expand...

I've already done this. Switches are allowed. Routers are not, although my roommate has one and hasnt gotten in trouble... yet.

I contacted the IT department and got put on hold for an hour. I had to go to class so I hung up.
 
I can't think of any way your campus could be affecting this. Have you used the network setup wizard on both your computers? It seems like I remember peer-to-peer networking with XP was flakey on my home set up too, but running the wizard I think fixed it. I haven't had any issues in a long time though. Are both your computers fully patched?
 
Originally posted by: Brazen
I can't think of any way your campus could be affecting this. Have you used the network setup wizard on both your computers? It seems like I remember peer-to-peer networking with XP was flakey on my home set up too, but running the wizard I think fixed it. I haven't had any issues in a long time though. Are both your computers fully patched?
Click to expand...


I cant figure out what is going on either. Both computers are recent install of XP Pro. Completely updated, no viruses, etc. My roommate has a router (against the rules of course, he'll get an email soon I'm guessing) and he has no problems with Windows networking.

I have used the network setup wizard to open up file sharing and set the workgroups to the same thing. I can't even see the other computer in View Workgroup Computers, but I keep some guy's Shared Docs in My Network Places (unlikely we are in the same workgroup, I have changed the name and his stuff still shows up). It's kinda weird.
 
Here is what I would do

1. Create a username/password on both machines that is the exact same
2. Setup a share, on the "sharing" tab, give everyone full control rights (shut of simplre file sharing) and on the security tab, make sure that user has "full control"
3. Login as that user on both machines, and then access the share using IP's in UNC paths, i.e. \\10.10.10.10\sharename. Use a simple file share and ensure functionality before moving on to the printers.
 
I figured it out in case anybody is having the same problem.

I unplugged my swtich from the college network and set static IPs. Everything worked great. I plugged back into the college network, let the DHCP server set IPs and it wouldnt work. I'm pretty sure the college is blocking that kind of stuff to keep bandwidth down across the network. What makes me suspect this is that they are already limiting us to 10Mbit on the network.

My solution was to plug the campus directly into ethernet port 1 on my desktop. Set my laptop to get internet wirlessly. My LAN plugs into my laptop and my desktop's secondary LAN port, with static IPs, free from the college network.


 
If both of your computers use WinXP Professional create your own workgroup for both computers. Then setup two identical user accounts on both computers for filesharing, say with 64-character passwords. You can set your computer in secpol.msc to only allow access from that user and you can use it to share files on both computers.
 
Originally posted by: InlineFive
If both of your computers use WinXP Professional create your own workgroup for both computers. Then setup two identical user accounts on both computers for filesharing, say with 64-character passwords. You can set your computer in secpol.msc to only allow access from that user and you can use it to share files on both computers.
Click to expand...

I don't think that will work. The college seems to be block Windows filesharing on their network.
 
If they are both plugged into your switch shouldn't it work? If you want to use them from across campus you would be better off looking into something like VPN or encrypted RDP/VNC.
 
I've played around with this.

When I have two computers plugged into the switch, and I set static IPs for both machines it works great. But no internet.

When I also plug an ethernet cable from the switch to the wall port in my room, it stops working. In order to acess the internet and campus resources I have to use their DHCP servers (I cannot set static IPs). But when I do this, I can still ping back and forth between the two machines, but I cannot use Windows file sharing or even see the other computer in View Workgroup Computesr. I'm assuming this is because all of my data is going through their gateway, which blocks Windows file sharing.

I don't really know exactly what is going on, but from what I have gathered,\ something about being forced through their gateway is blocking Windows file sharing.

Now you said something about VPN. How does this work? I use VNC to access a computer at home, but this is not what I am looking for. I simply want to share a printer and sync a few folders.
 
Originally posted by: bwatson283
Rule 1:
Get out of the dorm room and party it up.....College is one of the best times of your life, get out and enjoy it. Dont just sit in and watch tv and play on the PC. Join a fraternity, the payoff from pledging is well worth it.
Rule 2:
Rinse lather and repeat.
Click to expand...

Join a Fraternity? thats a rather blanket statement; The OP might have a more enjoyable time in college if he just made friends and not worry about pledging. Greek Life isn't for everyone.
 
Originally posted by: RedCOMET
Originally posted by: bwatson283
Rule 1:
Get out of the dorm room and party it up.....College is one of the best times of your life, get out and enjoy it. Dont just sit in and watch tv and play on the PC. Join a fraternity, the payoff from pledging is well worth it.
Rule 2:
Rinse lather and repeat.
Click to expand...

Join a Fraternity? thats a rather blanket statement; The OP might have a more enjoyable time in college if he just made friends and not worry about pledging. Greek Life isn't for everyone.
Click to expand...

What's to say that pledging a fraternity and making friends outside the fraternity are mutually exclusive?
 
Originally posted by: Leros
I figured it out in case anybody is having the same problem.

I unplugged my swtich from the college network and set static IPs. Everything worked great. I plugged back into the college network, let the DHCP server set IPs and it wouldnt work. I'm pretty sure the college is blocking that kind of stuff to keep bandwidth down across the network. What makes me suspect this is that they are already limiting us to 10Mbit on the network.

My solution was to plug the campus directly into ethernet port 1 on my desktop. Set my laptop to get internet wirlessly. My LAN plugs into my laptop and my desktop's secondary LAN port, with static IPs, free from the college network.
Click to expand...

You're not listening to the very knowlegable people here telling you how to do it. reference the computers with \\ip address\share name.

The reason it doesn't work when plugged into the uni network is there are other computers involved - you don't have control on how they are configured so when you ask for a list of computers (network neighboorhood, browsing), some yahoo that hasn't configured his machine right is answering you.
 
Originally posted by: Leros
I figured it out in case anybody is having the same problem.

I unplugged my swtich from the college network and set static IPs. Everything worked great. I plugged back into the college network, let the DHCP server set IPs and it wouldnt work. I'm pretty sure the college is blocking that kind of stuff to keep bandwidth down across the network. What makes me suspect this is that they are already limiting us to 10Mbit on the network.

My solution was to plug the campus directly into ethernet port 1 on my desktop. Set my laptop to get internet wirlessly. My LAN plugs into my laptop and my desktop's secondary LAN port, with static IPs, free from the college network.
Click to expand...
Have you tried accessing the other computer using \\ipaddy\sharename as has been suggested here many times?!

Also, are you using ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) on your desktop pc so you can get internet on your laptop? If so, you have just turned your desktop pc into a router, and if you are going to have a router, you might as well get a linksys wrt54gs.
 
Originally posted by: JW310
Originally posted by: RedCOMET
Originally posted by: bwatson283
Rule 1:
Get out of the dorm room and party it up.....College is one of the best times of your life, get out and enjoy it. Dont just sit in and watch tv and play on the PC. Join a fraternity, the payoff from pledging is well worth it.
Rule 2:
Rinse lather and repeat.
Click to expand...

Join a Fraternity? thats a rather blanket statement; The OP might have a more enjoyable time in college if he just made friends and not worry about pledging. Greek Life isn't for everyone.
Click to expand...

What's to say that pledging a fraternity and making friends outside the fraternity are mutually exclusive?
Click to expand...


Sorry to thread jack. Ok. I guess so, fraternities are not a pancea to being anti social.
 
You're not listening to the very knowlegable people here telling you how to do it. reference the computers with \\ip address\share name.
Click to expand...

I've done that. It doesn't work.
 
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