Network sharing giving headaches, odd and frustrating problem

[vulcan4d]

My network is driving me nuts. XP is a pain to network, gets worse and worse with every OS release I think. I need file sharing to work but unfortunately it has a mind of it's own. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. What causes it to swtich, god only knows. I can have my computer on, not even touch it and file sharing will work. A few minutes after it won't, few more minutes after it will, and so on without any user interaction. However I have noticed that it helps most of the time once I do loose the connection to access the computer's own shared files and that will kick in file sharing and make it available to other computers on the network once again.....for a while. Sometimes once it looses it, it looses it good no mater how many restarts or whatever I try. It'll come back on it's own....sigh. Like I said, a mind of it's own. For the most part what happens is the computers stop seeing the other PC. If I force the connection by connecting to an IP \\192.168.1.100 for example and choose the file to play, it either gives me one of two errors. It either tells me I don't have permission, which is BS because I have made it avaiable to "EVERYONE", or Xp says that explorer gave an error and has to be closed down (aka illegal operation in old terms lol). The problem is NOT the wirless network since I had it wired before with the same problem. The problem is also not related to a firewall. My network is setup using Netbeui since all other networks dont work PC to PC (XP to XP to be more exact, can't even see any PC in the workgroup). I use TCP/IP for my Xbox sharing, I use Media Centre to stream files from my PC. When my network goes down, both my other PC's and my Xbox can't connect to it can't be the protocols I use. Also all my PC's have a static IP setup. I'm seriously out of ideas. I tried reinstalling my adapter drivers, network connections with no changes. Only thing I can think of is Xp doesn't like my wifi router, Linksys wrt54g but as far as I know my settings are fine and I do not use any firewall on my router. Still that does not explain why accessing the computer's own shared files enables access to those file for the other computers again. Anyway, this is really messed and after struggling with it for a couple weeks I have no choice but to turn to you guys for help, maybe you know something I havn't tried. Any suggestions?

[YeOldeStonecat]

Some best practices....
Same exact users added to the local user group on each computer. Meaning...say you have ComputerA, and the user is JDoe with a password of "cigarette". And say you have ComputerB with a user of Blondie with a password of "dizzy". Add each of those users to the local user group of the other computer. Somehow include those users in the share you make...either share to "users" or add that users account.

I've setup many networks on the Linksys G routers, setting one up this morning on their new SRX MIMO router too. If you're doing wireless, make sure you have XPsp2..it makes wireless so much easier.

Networks should work fine with TCP/IP only, but I've seen some cases where I guess computers are...unhealthy, or have issues stemming from <whatever> reasons..OS upgrades instead of clean installs, many leftover old NIC drivers, bad ad/spy/malware/worm/virus infestations...especially on computers where that computer hosing peer to peer file downloading software is installed (which affects the winsock and DNS). TCP needs 100% functional DNS for browsing to occur. Rather than formatting with a fresh install, sometimes adding NetBEUI is a quick bandaid to get things rolling.

I also prefer a router to do the job of sharing an internet connection, I don't like running ICS, as a router has proven much more reliable, and better performing.

Now if you have NetBEUI added and your network goes down all at once, my hunch is you

Now you mention the network goes down, all at once. You have NetBEUI, so it's not a browsing issue, and all at once..so it makes me think it's something hanging up your router, or interfering with the signal. Is the router located near something giving off strong interference? Sitting on a subwoofer? Flourescent lights right near it? Cordless phone in use at the time?

How are your shares setup on each computer? You mention you can't even get access to the systems own files at times? You didn't go sharing your entire C partition did you?