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My home network consists of five Windows XP computers, and all but one talk to each other. How can I make them all talk? The network properties on all the computers are the same, with the following components enabled: File and Print Sharing, TCP/IP, and Client for Microsoft Networks. Without further information on your network setup and configuration it will be very hard to provide specific details on how to resolve the problem described. However, there are some general solutions which I can provide to help. The most common cause of network communication problems I have encountered is security software running on the computers that block communication between computers. If you are running any third-party firewalls (e.g. ZoneAlarm, Norton, McAfee) on the affected computer try disabling the firewall to check whether the problem persists. Should the problem be resolved the issue is related to the firewall on that computer not being configured to allow the computer access to the network, and you will need to make the appropriate configuration changes to the firewall to grant access. Should the problem not be related to firewalls, the next possibility is the network configuration on the computer is incorrect. Go to the “Start” menu > “Run” and type “cmd” (without the quotes) and click OK. In the Command Prompt window, type the following command: ipconfig /all This will list all the configuration details for the network adapter in the computer. Make sure the computer is obtaining a valid IP address, and that the other details (such as subnet mask and default gateway) are correct and match the settings on the other computers. If there are problems with the network configuration, have a look at the following article in the SK Archive for more information on resolving such issues: http://www.siliconkid.com.au/sk_archive/networking/file_and_print_sharing.html . If you need further guidance, please feel free to contact me again with additional information about the problem (such as details about the network setup, configuration information for the computers, etc.). |