Windows XP LAN: File & Printer Sharing

I spent about three hours today at Field's Hobbies helping them get a printer shared on their LAN.

I went through the same process at Mom's house in the spring of 2006. I didn't have my notes with me at Field's today. This is what I wrote and printed when I got everything set up at Mom's:

This note was printed at 12:48 AM.

I got Mom's machine and my laptop networked.

I'm not sure what worked.

--> enable some kind of NETBIOS

--> removed and reinstalled files and printer service on Mom's machine

--> activated Guest Account on Mom's machine (may not be necessary)

Ate some leftover pudding and a cookie.  

Today I seemed to need an extra step:

1. Add NETBIOS to each machine:

• Network Connections / Local Area Connection / Properties / Advanced / WINS / Enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP

2. Enable File and Printer Sharing:

• Network Connections / Local Area Connection / Properties – check the box.
• Configure firewall(s) to allow File and Printer Sharing.

3. Activate Guest Account: Control Panel / User Admin.

4. Add Service Advertising Protocol:

• Network Connections / Local Area Connection / Properties / Install / Service Advertising Protocol

Today I had a peanut-covered victory donut after I added NETBIOS to each machine. It was premature, but, on the whole, I think it was at least as helpful as the pudding and cookie I had at Mom's house.

Both at Mom's and at Field's, I also ran the Network Setup Wizard many times and made sure that all the computers had a different name and that they were assigned to the same workgroup. Why the [insert expletive] Network Setup Wizard doesn't help one [insert expletive] bit with the [insert expletive] four essential steps above, I just [insert expletive] don't understand.

(I learned how to insert expletives like that at Hood Welding when I was young. This is a family-friendly site, so I leave it to the reader to select expletives as desired to fill out the meaning. [Insert expletive] MicroSoft!

IPconfig is an extremely useful tool for seeing what is happening on the network.

• Start / run / command / ipconfig

Microsoft(R) Windows DOS
(C)Copyright Microsoft Corp 1990-2001.

C:\>ipconfig

Windows IP Configuration


Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection :

        Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : canisius.edu
        IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 138.92.15.87
        Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.248.0
        Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 138.92.8.1

C:\>

It can also be called with the “/all” switch:

C:\>ipconfig/all

Windows IP Configuration

        Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : IC-16428
        Primary Dns Suffix  . . . . . . . :
        Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown
        IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
        WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
        DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : canisius.edu

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection :

        Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : canisius.edu
        Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek RTL8169/8110 Family Gigabit
Ethernet NIC
        Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-16-17-63-8A-FB
        Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
        Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
        IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 138.92.15.87
        Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.248.0
        Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 138.92.8.1
        DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 138.92.240.5
        DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 138.92.8.6
                                            138.92.8.4
        Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Saturday, January 06, 2007 9:57:44 P
M
        Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Saturday, January 06, 2007 10:27:44
PM

C:\>

It is also comforting to ping one computer on the network from another. That shows that they're talking to each other at a very basic level. If they're not talking to each other this way, file and print sharing probably isn't going to work.

C:\>ping 138.92.15.87

Pinging 138.92.15.87 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 138.92.15.87: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 138.92.15.87: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 138.92.15.87: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 138.92.15.87: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128

Ping statistics for 138.92.15.87:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms

• Changed FRONT from fixed IP to automatic.
• Mark this version of Windows setup & save it on both computers so that it can be rolled back if the printer gets lost again.
• Test with Windows firewall re-enabled–see whether it does, in fact, break the printer sharing. Even if it does, there may be a way around that by giving each computer the other's IP address.
• I think I fixed the “runonce” problem with IE7 on both computers. The browsers were going to your homepage when I left the shop.
• I made some changes in permissions on one screen that probably neither helped nor hurt. I'm moderately confident that the changes only affect the LAN itself, but I would have put them back the way I found them if it hadn't been so late already.

• Question to ask people when the connection is lost: what, if anything, was going on just before the connection disappeared? (On Saturday, we played a movie of some kind about trains. It didn't cause any problems the day before. It may not have caused any problems on Saturday. But some pattern may appear if people keep asking the question.)
• Winsock fix? start / cmd / netsh Winsock reset
• PPPoE LLC set in DLink? (DLink setup disk?)
• DLink configured to do DHCP?
• 192.168.0.1 – talk to the router
• Scan for viruses, spyware, malware, etc.
• Find out more about how the car workstation is set up. It's got something complicated handling its connection to the LAN. Perhaps the same setup should be applied to the front workstation.
• scan for hijack?