Hello!

I have a client with a two computer network: one is XP Pro and the other
Win98SE. A Linksys wireless B router is connected to a DSL modem, the XP
machine is connected by Ethernet to the router and the Win98 machine is
connected to the network by a Linksys wireless PCI card. Both have up to
date antivirus (XP has McAfee, the other Norton 2003) and the both have
firewalls from the same companies.

I set this network up about a month ago with the intention of both computers
using the DSL and sharing a couple of folders each with the other computer.
All was fine. This week, I was called in to investigate why they were no
longer able to share these folders as before. Both the computers access the
internet with no problems and the XP machine can see and use the folder on
the Win98 computer as a network share. However, the Win98 machine cannot see
the XP shared folder. When I looked at the XP's shared folder's properties,
it was pointing to the wrong folder (!?), so I set about to create a new
share. No dice: the XP computer cannot be found on the network. Both
computers can see themselves on the network, but cannot see the other. I
have turned off the firewalls, I have checked to make sure that there are no
demands for authentication within the network, I have rerun the "create a
small business/home network" wizard many times on the XP machine (and
created a network setup disk for the Win98 computer which won't work because
the wireless card works through software which loads after the network setup
wizard tries to run, so it can't find a working network card...grr). The
router information has not changed (though I did disable the DHCP in the
router and assigned IP addresses to each machine: same result).

I am stuck. The hardware seems to work fine. Am I missing something simple?
Is there any road less traveled that might lead to a solution?

Thanks for you time and thoughts!

Best,

Will Stephenson
Acadia Technologies Inc.
mailto:[log in to unmask]

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