Vista will not find my wireless notebook

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alisam

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#29293 1-Jan-2009 21:32

I have a desktop pc running Vista Home Premium, wired to a DSE Wireless ADSL Router (XH9950) and I have a MSI Wind U100 Notebook running XP SP3 which connects wirelessly to the DSE Router. Both connect OK to the Internet.

I wish to network the 2 computers and I have set the XP workgroup to WORKGROUP so they are both the same.

However, when I try to 'Add a wireless device' on the Vista PC the search turns up nothing.

I have tried the USB method and it certainly adds the notebook, but I get Windows cannot access \\NOTEBOOK. The diagnostics say 'NOTEBOOK' not a valid host name.

Does anyone know of a good set of instructions on the web.

Also, I don't know what sort of network I am setting up, as I have 1 wired computer and 1 wireless computer.

PS I have seen comments about firewalls and I am running the McAfee Security Centre (from NZ Telecom). The notebook is running the free version of Zonealarm.

Also Network Discovery is ON.

PC: Dell Inspiron 16 5640 (Windows 11 Home), Dell Inspiron 7591 2n1 (Windows 11 Pro), HP ProBook 470G1 (Windows 10 Pro), Intel NUC7I5BNH (Zorin)
Net: Grandstream 1 x GWN7062 Router, 1 x GWN7665 Access Point
Storage: Synology DS216play NAS, 2 x 6TB
Media: 3 x Amazon FireTV. Echo, Dot, Spot
TV: 2 x Samsung H6400 55" LED TV, Panasonic TH-P50G10Z 50" Plasma TV
Mobile: Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
Wearable: Gear S3 Frontier

freitasm

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#186947 1-Jan-2009 22:34

If your desktop and notebook are both connected to the same router then you have a network - you don't have to "Add a wireless device" on your desktop.

You have to make sure both computers are in the same LAN segment - are both with the same address range, for example 192.168.0.xxx?

If they are both in the same range, are you able to PING the address from each? If you can't ping, then can you disable the firewalls and try again?

If they see each other now, then your problem is just the sofware configuration.

What exactly you want to do? Access files from one computer on another? Copy files between them?

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alisam

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#186965 2-Jan-2009 08:11

Seem to have solved all my issues:

a) I added the IP Address of the Vista PC into Zonealarm on the XP PC. I didn't do anything in McAfee.

b) After playing around, I noticed that my XP IP Address had changed from .6 to .20. I don't know what I did but I definately did not type in a new IP Address anywhere.

Thanks for your tips.

freitasm

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#186966 2-Jan-2009 08:17

Your PCs get their addresses from the router's DHCP server. If this is the case they may change addresses sometimes (most routers will try to give the same address to a PC as long as possible).

Sometimes instead of allowing the single PC address it would be easier to allow the entire range, just in case.

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alisam

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#186968 2-Jan-2009 08:36

The router settings show:
DHCP=Enabled
Starting IP Address=192.168.1.5 (which is the Vista Desktop PC)
IP Pool Count=32

Clicking the 'Current Pool Summary' button shows my Desktop and Notebook PC's i.e. 2.

Should I change the Starting IP Addrsss to 192.168.1.1 (i.e. to cover the entire range as you suggested)?

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#186969 2-Jan-2009 08:38

No, you shouldn't change the router. You should change the firewall settings on your PC to allow the entire range your router uses.

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cyril7

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#186971 2-Jan-2009 08:52

Might I suggest that you remove Zonealarm, infact XP comes with an adequate firewall especially when you concider that all your PCs are sitting behind an applicance firewall (DSE ADSL router). From my experience Zonealarm is a very poor firewall, not only does it do little it often seems to slow throughput.

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freitasm

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#186975 2-Jan-2009 09:19

Good recommendation. I actually run antivirus and antispyware on my PCs, but just use the Windows Firewall. Anything you install will impact on your computer's performance - and as cyril7 says I'd remove it...

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alisam

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#186976 2-Jan-2009 09:24

Thank you both for your recommendations and I will remove Zonealarm (and make sure the Windows firewall is swtiched on).

uknzguy

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#187065 2-Jan-2009 20:46

FWIW, there is one important difference between XP Firewall and Zone Alarm: the Windows firewall in XP does not stop any outbound connections at all.

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#187082 2-Jan-2009 22:00

Correct.

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