Workgroup networking

[shmokes]

Do any of you network people know if the file/printer sharing component of Windows XP can be uninstalled/reinstalled?

I've got a machine that suddenly cannot be seen by other computers in its workgroup and it cannot see them.

[Santoro]

Is it XP home or Pro?  In Pro you should disable "Simple File Sharing"

(from any explorer window tools->folder options->View Tab->scroll to end.)

Might not be your issue, but then again it might.

[shmokes]

Yeah....I tried that, but got nothing.  Weird thing is that the other computers are using simple file shareing just fine (not to mention that until a couple weeks ago this computer was as well).  Such a pain.

Thanks for the suggestion, though.

[Santoro]

Last time I had a mysterious problem like this, it was 'stupid user error' - I had installed SP2 and forgot to open holes in the windows firewall.

Can you ping the machine from the LAN using it's netbios name? (Or whatever it is called these days)   It sounds kind of like the hook between the IP stack and the windows client is hosed.

Have you removed all networking and reinstalled it all?

Jut throwing stuff out there.  I used to do this for a living.

[GGKoul]

Control Panel ---> Add Remove Programs ---> Add/Remove Window Components (3rd Icon down on the right)

[shmokes]

Okay...now we're talking.  I hadn't even thought of removing it that way.  I was only looking in the properties window for that specific network device.  I'll be down in that office tomorrow and will give that a shot.  That gives me a little hope.

Thanks guys.

Yeah, I tried turning off the firewall altogether on all the machines involved.  I haven't tried pinging the netbios name.  In fact, I've never tried that.  But I can ping the IP address and I have netbios over TCP/IP enabled.  To ping the name do I have to put in any context or just ping netbios_name?