PCFormat Forum Archive

Hi guys:

I have downloaded service pack 2 last week and now Iam having a problem sharring internet with my son.
I noticed that there is a firewall enabled on my pc and I cannot see my son's pc and my son cannot see my pc as well.I tried to disable the firewall but we still can't see each other ( my sons pc and mine ).
What can be the solution to this?
Iam even thinking of reformating my harddrive to get rid of the firewall.
Please help anyone out there.

If you installed SP2, I assume you're running Win XP. What is your son running?

YES WE ARE RUNNING XP.

BOTH OF US ARE RUNNING XP.

You need to enable peer to peer networking, go to add/remove programs then choose add/remove windows components, scroll down to networking components and ensure that peer to peer networking is installed. Run the network setup wizard on the pc with the internet connection first and then on the other and it should work

Thanks Norrad for your respond but I tried all that and it changes nothing.

I think what I need is someone who is good with firewalls.
The SP2 has a firewall so I need correct procedures to setup my firewall to enable my son to share the internet.

mmm, did you enable file and printer sharing in the network setup wizard on both pcs?

Yes the file and printer sharing is enabled.
Once again thanks for your respond.

I was having the same problem between my brother's PC and mine (I loaded SP2, while his PC is still on SP1a), but in our case simply removing the local LAN connection from the firewall under Advanced\Network Connection Settings seemed to do the trick.

I suppose I should just do the proper thing, and load SP2 on my bro's PC as well, but thankfully this little 'quick-fix' is working for the time being.

One thing you can also check is that 'File and Printer Sharing' is allowed under the Exceptions tab.

Hi
Do a check, and disable the firewall on your PC. Make sure you can access the internet from your pc. Then try sharing your connection with your son, but without firewall. If that works, you know it's the firewall settings (which on default shoud still allow sharing)
Also, wrt file and printer sharing, you don't want to have that bound to your internet connection, else you'll be sharing your hdd to the 'net.
Check the IP settings on your son's pc. You might have to set that one up again for the shared connection, if that fails, uninstall tcp/ip, and do that over.
If you're running xp home then there is a 5 pc limit for the network, so if you have more than just 2 pcs on your network, check that.
Ping one machine from the other, and vice versa. Also ping the 'net from your machine.
Else try looking on the MS site

After I insalled SP2 on both my machine I had almost the exact same problem.

I fixed it quickly though. Just disabled the firewall on both PCs and told the Security Alerts thingy that I would monitor the firewall myself, hasn't bothered me since