networking copmuters, and a broken printer

[shackrock]

Here goes:

A - I want to network my 2 computers (recording comp, to my "working" comp.) Everything worked fine when one comp was XP home and one was ME.

Now, one is still XP home (recording), and we switched our ME computer to XP Proffesional (working).

Same workgroup, same settings set in the networking wizard. Yet - the computers will not recognize eachother. My XP Pro comp won't even recognize it's own workgroup! (which is the same as the XP home comp!).

Any Ideas of what's left to do?


B - With my Lexmark x63 "all in one" printer - We've talked with tech support guys for hours. haha. Anyway, I NEED to be able to print out invoices/etc - and it works only when it wants too. Most of teh time, if I wait long enough after clicking print, the "control program" for the printer will stop responding. But, eventually it will start to print...just after it has been frozen for 4 minutes. Then again, sometimes that isnot even the case.

Anyone got any ideas here? tech support told us to get more memory. I said, yeah right. haha. (If I open the ctrl alt delte panel, my CPU usage is at like 3% or lower the entire time that the printer program remains not responding).

THANKS

 

[Nosferous]

Do you have the Windows XP firewall enabled on ANY of the machines?

If so, try disableing it on any machine it's enabled on.
Then open up the network neighborhood and see if the machines now see each other- I have this problem with my network (XP Home and an XP Pro machines) I have to turn off the built in XP firewall to have my computers see and read each other.

 

[shackrock]

isn't that bad to do..to turn off ICF? I mean, I have norton internet security on one computer, and the other one I have Zonelabs free thing...you think that is enough?

you keep ICF off on both comps?

Acutually, on my XPhome computer (recording computer), the ICF is messed up, it won't even load. It says reload windows to fix problems. haha. but, I definately will not reload windows becuase it's recording fine, and I'm afriad something will messup if i do.

 

[gordone]

Definetly get rid of Zone Alarm! I was trying to network 2 PCs (XP Home and Win2K) and I had all kinds of problems. I had ZA installed, but not running since I was using Agnitum's Outpost Firewall. Once I uninstalled ZA, everything worked fine.
Outpost is a much better firewall than ZA anyways, it is a little more difficult to configure, but it a lot more powerful and customizable. It also has a popup blocker, ad-blocker and content blockers to keep your kids from accessing naughty sites!

 

[Nosferous]

I keep ICF on, but when I'm going to transfer a file I turn it off, I'm behind a hardware firewall also- so I'm not completely exposed or anything- still not 100% safe but better than nothing.

I just find ICF sometimes causes home networking problems- I've only seen it a few times. Sometimes I can have ICF on and still see the computers- but most the time I have to turn them off. I'll have to research that again- 'cause last time I found nothing and got fed up searching for the answer.