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Windows networking.. can't see network printer

B

bignateyk

Lifer
ok, so I have a home network with

Windows XP desktop
Brother network printer
Windows XP netbook
Windows Vista Laptop
Belkin Wireless N router

For the purposes of debugging, I have turned off all firewalls on all machines. I have also shared a folder on each of the 3 computers.

From the netbook, I am able to print, and access the shared folder on the desktop and the laptop.

From the desktop, I am able to print, and access the shared folder on the netbook, but NOT the vista laptop.

From the vista laptop, I am ONLY able to access the shared folder on the netbook. No printing or accessing the folder on the desktop.

When I go into the network in vista it shows all the computers on the network, but when I try to access the desktop or printer it says the network resource not available. HOWEVER, I am able to ping those machines from the vista laptop.

I'm at a loss here. Up until a month ago I was able to print from the vista laptop to the brother printer. As far as I know NOTHING changed. I just turned the laptop on one day and it would no longer print.

Any suggestions?
 
If you've verified that the machines have full network connectivity, but you're unable to use Windows file sharing between Vista and XP, NTLM and SMB security settings on the Vista laptop may be set in such a way as to prevent the older XP machines from connecting.
 
theevilsharpie said:
If you've verified that the machines have full network connectivity, but you're unable to use Windows file sharing between Vista and XP, NTLM and SMB security settings on the Vista laptop may be set in such a way as to prevent the older XP machines from connecting.
Click to expand...

I'll look into that. I am able to connect from the vista laptop to the XP netbook and visa versa. I just can't connect from the vista laptop to the XP desktop or the network printer.
 
By network printer, do you mean a locally-connected printer that is shared via windows file sharing, or an actual TCP/IP printer that is connected directly to the network?
 
theevilsharpie said:
By network printer, do you mean a locally-connected printer that is shared via windows file sharing, or an actual TCP/IP printer that is connected directly to the network?
Click to expand...

TCP/IP printer connected directly to the network. Until recently I was able to print to it just fine using the vista laptop. I turned it on one day and it no longer worked.
 
theevilsharpie said:
Are you sure that the TCP/IP settings on the Vista laptop are correct (e.g. correct subnet mask)?
Click to expand...

Everything is set to automatic under the tcp/ip properties...

edit:

actually, it seems that I am unable to ping the printer or the desktop from the vista laptop. Every once in a while a ping will go through, but most of them fail. I am able to ping the netbook just fine though.

edit2:

The latency is really high. Pinging the netbook goes through, but has like a 100ms latency. Pinging the desktop will go through like 1/4. No pings go through to the printer.

All the other computers can ping each other just fine...

Pinging the vista laptop from the netbook the latency is like 3ms...
 
Last edited:
If the whole system is on DHCP and the IP assignment changes it can effect the sharing.

If your DHCP can do IP reservation use it.

Otherwise give the computer with the Printer a ststic IP and redo the sharing.

.
 
JackMDS said:
If the whole system is on DHCP and the IP assignment changes it can effect the sharing.

If your DHCP can do IP reservation use it.

Otherwise give the computer with the Printer a ststic IP and redo the sharing.

.
Click to expand...

ok, I set everything to reserved IP's.

Something weird is going on with pinging. If I set a continuous ping going from the netbook to the printer, it will go just fine. Then if I start up a ping from the vista laptop to the printer, it will respond once and timeout a bunch of times.

When I start the ping from the vista machine to the printer, all the pings from the netbook to the printer start timing out.
 
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