Every machine can access network but mine....

[inurdreams]

I used to show all the computers and users on my network, but now my laptop cannot access the network. I checked and the workgroup is the same on all the computers. I can see my desktop, my other laptop, my 2nd desktop on the network, and my laptop. I can access the network from any of the other computers. My username is there when I go to the desktop. Also, for my daughter’s laptop, it shows as “George-PC” on the network, and the desktop shows as “Desktop-PC”…. But my computer on the network does not have “-PC” behind it.

I can access my laptop from the desktop, just not vice versa.

I just copied over a bunch of music to my laptop, was able to view documents and pictures, then suddenly my access was gone and I can’t get onto the desktop. This happened about a week ago - I took the laptop with me to a meeting...worked on some MS Office stuff, didn’t try to connect to any networks or anything… but ever since that day, I can’t access the network. My daughter hasn’t had any problems (the 2nd laptop) but she has never used it anywhere but home. We got these the beginning of January so they are unknown entities to me.

Both laptops are Dell i1545 running Windows 7
The main desktop is Dell 531s running Vista
The other desktop “downstairs” is a very old Dell running XP (and me thinks breathing it’s last!)

Is there a limit to the number of users? Would that affect getting access to the network?!? (Again, my daughter’s laptop isn’t experiencing any of these problems.) I have checked all the settings that I know to look at (which isn’t much!) and don’t know what the difference would be….

Any help is much appreciated. <<Think I will put this on my list of classes to take next semester… Networking 101!!>>

[Midknyte]

"Home" Oses are limited to 5 simultaneous clients.

Do you have any firewall software installed?

[inurdreams]

"Home" Oses are limited to 5 simultaneous clients.

Do you have any firewall software installed?

I show 6 users currently. I tried to delete one, but was unsuccessful.(?!?)

Yes, I would guess we all have the same firewall, at least the laptops do and the main desktop. I didn't set up the network initially, my daughter's boyfriend did all the networking, and I really hate to ask him questions, he's not exactly "user friendly". LOL I believe he told me the desktops are using Windows firewall, same as the desktop, and then there is the router. (Back in the day, I could build one of these things, but not anymore!) He was pretty specific about me not downloading any malware or anti-virus stuff on the laptops, just use MS Security. They are still fairly new just-out-of-the-box laptops, the most I did was put Office 2007 on them and Panda USB vaccine (what a wonderful tool!).

[Midknyte]

What do you mean by 6 users? Do you mean user accounts? Those are not CLIENTS. Clients = workstations

Try disabling the firewalls.

Did you try a direct connection to one of the workstation shares? \\workstationname\sharename

[inurdreams]

What do you mean by 6 users? Do you mean user accounts? Those are not CLIENTS. Clients = workstations

Try disabling the firewalls.

Did you try a direct connection to one of the workstation shares? \\workstationname\sharename

So sorry, I didn't catch the word "clients" - yes, it is 6 users...

Do I disable firewall on both machines?

Do you mean map to a drive, like drive "Z:"? I remember doing it a long time ago, but I'm not sure I remember how. I will try as soon as the laptop is done with backup...

[Midknyte]

You can map a drive, but that more than what I'm saying. you can just go to start-run and type in the path to the shared folder on another client system.

If you have a shared folder on George-PC named "photos", then the path would be \\George-PC\photos

Did you even try pinging the other systems? Since you can "see" the other workstations listed in your network, I'm guessing that you can.

[inurdreams]

I turned off the firewall on both computers and tried to access through the network, nada,.Tried mapping to network drive again, nada.

OK, so I tried to map to drive "Z:" and I entered my username and password and got the message "Windows cannot access \\Desktop-PC. You do not have permission to access Desktop-PC. Contact your network administrator to request access."
"For more about permissions, see windows help and support."

I tried again to map to “Y:” to try another user/password. It didn't give me a password the 2nd or third time, just the "cannot access" message.

So I went through and it says
You haven't created or joined a homegroup
*I am a member of the homegroup...*
You're not using a homegroup...
*Yes, we are*
Network discovery is turned off
*No, on both computers*
Password protected sharing is turned on
*Yes, for all computers*
The computers aren't in the same workgroup
*Yes, I checked that and they all are*
Group Policy might be blocking the connection
*No, or that is not true for the other computers and I doubt that is the case*
Your computer doesn't have the latest updates for your router
*That may be true, but why is it that everyone else can get on?*

[Midknyte]

Do NOT use homegroup unless ALL systems are Win7.

Maybe this will help:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windo...dows-7-and-xp/

[inurdreams]

Do NOT use homegroup unless ALL systems are Win7.

Maybe this will help:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windo...dows-7-and-xp/

I didn't know, and set up the Win 7 laptop with a homegroup, but Vista, of course, does not have that feature (so far as I can tell and from what you have indicated).

I went to the tutorial on how-to geek and that didn't help - most I had tried but rechecked all the settings. Nada.

So, I set up another user on my laptop and named the user account "desktop" and through it I am able to see all the files on the Desktop-PC as well as my user (original login) on the laptop - "starglass". Isn't this like the long way around though? Why can't "starglass" get access to the network??? Maybe this is the way it's supposed to be (although this is not the set up on my daughter's laptop - she can access the Desktop through her original user name/account).

I'm still stumped as to why it was there, and now it is not...?!?