Two Entirely Non-Related Computer Questions -

1. I hate Windows. My dad has a network set up with his XP computer in his bedroom and his W2k computer in his office. He wants to print from bedroom to office, but although the computers are on the same workgroup and can see and ping one another, you can't connect from XP to W2k. It does work the other way around, though. Ideas?

2. Somebody gave me a really old laptop that's crashed. All I need to do, though, is pull the HDD, transfer a Linux distro (I'm thinking Knoppix just for extreme simplicity) to the disk and then drop it back in. How do you get the HDD out? The only laptops I ever worked on were IBM machines, so those are the only kind I know and this one isn't one of them. There are two tabs that you can flip that will allow you to pull the drive out a little bit, but it only moves about 1/2 an inch and it stops. I've tried everything I can see but there's usually a trick that isn't well known that gets me.

Thanks guys!

you SHOULD, be able to browse the network, find the comnputer, and see the printer,,, right clcik the printer, and select Connect.

1. You are using IP, how are you resolving host names? If you don't have WINS/DNS/hosts/LMhosts set up (these services would allow you to browse on a Windows IP network), you can still locate the resources by using the IP address:

\\<ipaddress>\<printer share>

2. It's probably best to go to the manufacturer's site and try to locate and download a field service or user manual.

did you enable file and printer sharing on both pcs and create a guest account with password?

(I never turn on my guest account without a good password).

I guess you do need an account that has a password. I don't think it has to be the guest account. My guest accounts are disabled. I always make sure I have the same account name and password on both machines. I don't know if it helps, but I think it does.

You might have firewall problems, especially if you have a third party firewall.

I find the easiest way to connect to another computer when it doesn't show up in the network is to type \\other_computer_name in the address bar of Windows Explorer. Where other_computer_name is the name of the other computer.

AcMarina, your laptop doesn't have a CD drive?

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ACMarina said:
1. I hate Windows. My dad has a network set up with his XP computer in his bedroom and his W2k computer in his office. He wants to print from bedroom to office, but although the computers are on the same workgroup and can see and ping one another, you can't connect from XP to W2k. It does work the other way around, though. Ideas?

Thanks guys!

[/ QUOTE ]

To parrot what others have said:

1) turn off firewalls and/or allow local network traffic

2) make sure that you have a common login and pass

3) the ping is a good test for basic connectivity

4) workgroup names are arbitrary, they help but are not critical

5) in the sharing permissions, turn on full access for everyone

Well, I can connect now, but you have to enter a username and password every time. I'm still playing with the permissions, so that should work sooner or later. .

And the laptop does have a hard drive, but it's set up in such a way that it's inaccessable until the OS would have booted. It was running Windows 3.1 until it crashed. .

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ACMarina said:
And the laptop does have a hard drive, but it's set up in such a way that it's inaccessable until the OS would have booted. It was running Windows 3.1 until it crashed. .

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If you meant to say the laptop does have a CD drive, it sounds like the BIOS doesn't support booting from CD. I wonder if there is a BIOS update available for that turkey.

There is a way to install Win2k and XP on machines that can't boot from CD. You download something that makes a bunch of floppies. Then you boot from the first floppy and feed in the others when requested. Then it will read the install CD. Maybe there is something similar for Linux.

On the other hand, if that thing was built for Win 3.1, maybe it's incapable of running a modern OS. I'm wondering what CPU it has. Maybe a '386 or '486 ?

Ohh, it'd totally kill it to run a modern OS. That's why I'm gonna run Linux /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif Anything over a cd's worth would kill it too, but I'm thinking it'd run (slowly, but run) on Knoppix.

Not only does the BIOS not have a boot option from CD, it doesn't even show it as existing. Without some sort of OS based bootup, nothing will happen.

wow....that laptop of yours sounds truly like a POS.
3.1 hey? will the hard drive even have enough space to hold all the linux files? (or is that flavour of linux ran solely of cdrom?)
You could pick up a 6 gig laptop hard drive off ebay...they're dirt cheap now. Anything would be better than the hard drive im guessing you have...even a 2 gig /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

As for your winxp connecting to your win2k, i think you need identical login and password names on both computers....at least thats how i got mine to work. And then you set the permissions and security on both computers to accept each other

Setting up printer sharing with Windows XP with specific examples of connecting another box running Win2K =)

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eluminator said:
I guess you do need an account that has a password. I don't think it has to be the guest account. My guest accounts are disabled. I always make sure I have the same account name and password on both machines. I don't know if it helps, but I think it does.

You might have firewall problems, especially if you have a third party firewall.

I find the easiest way to connect to another computer when it doesn't show up in the network is to type \\other_computer_name in the address bar of Windows Explorer. Where other_computer_name is the name of the other computer.

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remember the guest account has the lowest level of permissions.

If someone were to guess the password still cant do much..

now if you used an account with admin or say power user... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

ACMarina,

Your printer sharing, is this still an issue. I work for the dreaded Microsoft and manage one of the call centres. I still remember most of my troubleshooting from my tech days. PM me if you would like to go over the problem /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Chris

Yup, it's a craptop. The HDD is just big enough to hold a CD, and all I want to do is get online with it. Shouldn't be too tough, I can mod up my own distro if I have to..

As for the printer issue, I'm at the point where it asks me for a username and password. I give it what it wants and then everything is okay until either the W2K machine is reset or the other computer is reset. Then it just asks you for the username and password again. I think it's part of the increased security with the last W2K service pack, would be my guess. I'm pretty close to figuring it out. .