Tony writes in with a networking question:
Q. I have a home network with a wireless router. Two PCs are wireless and one wired. All are running XP pro SP2. All IPs are in the same subnet and subnet mask is the same (all are DHCP). All computers can access the internet through the router. The wired computer can ping the other two, but cannot be pinged by either of the others. I have tried everything I could think of short of re-installing, including disabling the firewall. It used to work but I can't figure out why it quit. I am religious about updates, anti-virus scans and spyware scans.
A. When you run an ipconfig /all from a command prompt they all have the same information except IP address (off by the last number) and hardware (MAC) address? Have you added any new software on any of the computers like Norton Security or MacAfee on the wired computer? I’ve seen it where even if they are disabled they will still block access.
Can you see them in My Network Places or search by computer name or IP address?
Do you have file and printer sharing enabled on the wired computer?
Are there any firewall rules in the router?
Another way to test is to run a network cable to one of your laptops from the router and turn off the wireless and see if you can access the desktop wired instead of wireless. That may help you narrow it down.
Here is a link with some good suggestions for troubleshooting home networking problems.
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operating_Systems/WinXP/Q_21014637.html
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