Vista: Computer Browsing and Firewall

[chicagotech]

Thank you for sharing your experience with us. By the way, the computer browsing takes about 15 minutes. sometimes, we just need to wait for a while.

Bob Lin, MS-MVP, MCSE & CNE
Networking, Internet, Routing, VPN Troubleshooting on http://www.ChicagoTech.net
How to Setup Windows, Network, VPN & Remote Access on http://www.HowToNetworking.com
"raykos" <raykos@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:F6344473-FF94-4D3C-8A7E-D7A50988E171@microsoft.com...
Hello all,
I've seen some postings about a Vista computer not seeing other devices on
the network, yet could still get to the Internet; that was also may problem
with a small home network. In case it can be of help to anybody, this is
what I did to network together a Vista machine, two W2k, & one XP.
I'm using a Netgear router, two Netgear wireless adapters, (one for the
Vista machine & one for the XP machine), and the W2k machines are plugged
into ports on the back of the router. The first thing I did was disconnect
the router from the Internet, left everything else alone, turned off all
firewalls on all machines, used
whatever "joining a network/worgroup" help file that was with the individual
machine, making sure all PC's were in the same workgroup(WORKGROUP), and
after waiting about 15 min.(according to the Vista help files), the other
machines did show up in the Vista network; although the "view full map" said
they couldn't be placed on the map. But, that was okay because I could set
up share points, share printers, etc. In other words everybody saw everybody
else.
After doing some further research into the firewalls, I discovered a
little more about what "Trusted" meant, especially with the Norton Security
that came with the Vista machine. Under the "Personal firewall" settings, you
can add the IP address of the machine(s) you're trying to network with, and
the same thing was true with the other firewalls I was running on the other
machines. All my PC's get their IP's dynamically, which meant that the
router knew it's own address and would just add 1 to that address for each
machine that was connected, either direct or wireless, and these were then
the addresses I added into all the firewalls "Trusted" configurations.
My problems were associated with the firewalls and I'm not a networking
pro, but if this can be of any help, or maybe give somebody an idea, great!

Good luck,
Ray

[guest]

I had the same problem, Vista couldn't find anyone. If I told the Vista PC
where to look, it said it couldn't access the printer. The problem turned
out to be the Norton Security software on the Vista pc. Once I told it to
trust the network and to trust the 2 other PCs (including the one with the
printer), I was able to find the printer when I told the Vista pc the
computer and printer name( i.e \\computername\printername). I still don't
see the network on the Vista pc, although I see the whole network (including
the Vista pc) from the 2 XP pc's. At least I am now able to print on my
printer that is connected to one of the XP pc's.

Are we having fun yet?
Tom