Networking help needed, please?

A question about : Networking help needed, please?

Guys

I need some networking help.

I already have a laptop which connects to a Netgear wireless router/modem for internet access, but due to the limited hard drive space I decided to create a wireless home network with an older PC, which I can use as a type of server.

So I bought a USB wireless adaptor for the desktop and tried to create the network on XP, but I cannot see the laptop from the desktop or vice versa. What makes it more confusing is that I can now access the internet from the desktop, even though this can only be possible through the wireless adapter.

The desktop is running XP Pro and the laptop XP Home. Any help is gratefully received. Cheers

Best answers:

• XP networks are pants..
  they seem to have issues with file sharing when the internet sharing works fine.. I had the same problems with my old XP network.. printer sharing is also an issue.. You just have to keep trying.. I used to have to install the network about 6-10 times to get it to work but it would work eventually. Sometimes you were lucky and it went first time.. other times it wouldn't.. (my sister's pc has had lots of hardware failures lately since her power supply went making the electrics in everything else dodgy so I've had to reinstall XP quite a few times meaning resetting up the network)..
• Hi janmolby:
  If you right click on start and left click on explore you will be able to scroll up to the irectory you want to 'share' on your hardd drive. Right click on the directory and left click on 'Sharing and Security' - is it shared?
  Also START/SETTINGS/CONTROL PANEL make sure you are in classic view not catagory view then doucble click SYSTEM. Select the COMPUTER NAME !tab - make sure that the names of your two machines are different and that both machines are in the same WORKGROUP.
  Let me know how you get on.
• Now I'm not 100% sure about this but, I think there are known issues with getting XP home to talk to XP Pro. My mate tried this for a small company, and I'm sure he couldn't get it to work. It appears that maybe XP home has deliberatly programmed not to talk to XP Pro, as a way of Microsoft protecting there licence laws. After all, if you are a business you have XP Pro throughout, and if your at home you have XP Home throughout, thats what they want.
  I'll think about this one in a bit more detail...
• Thank you all. Will try some of those.
• My XP home AND XP Pro share fine. On my Netgear box (DG834G) there is a feature call Wireless Isolation - which I don't use. As I understand it this feature prevents interworking between wireless devices and only permits access to/from the broadband.
  Let me know how you get on.
• Wow! I had exactly the same problem! (DG834G router and WG121 USB adapter.)
  Tech. support were pretty useless. I re-installed Windows on the computer connected to the wireless adapter, and everything worked with virtually no configuration.
  Probably not the solution you wanted, but this might help if all else fails. :-/