Networking XP With Older Windows
Fred: My computer is running XP Home and my wife's runs ME. Her PC has a floppy, a CD drive and a HP all in one printer/scanner/copier/fax. Mine has a CD, a CD/DVD writer and a HP printer. I would like to have them networked so I can access her floppy, or the all-in-one when needed.
I did my research before starting and made sure that they should be able to be networked. I have the cable hooked up (it is the one where the ends are reversed) and they have been networked before. I must have made some changes to services or something because now they are not networked.I went back into msconfig and clicked the Normal startup button to reset all the drivers. I have gone back thru the network wizard and tried to set up a home network all to no avail. I used the XP CD on the ME PC and did the "Perform Additional Tasks" routine.
The computers are named and the workgroup is the same on both computers.
I had an IT person (my son) try to network them but he was unable. My son says that XP doesn't like to be networked with ME and that I should reformat the ME PC and install XP on it. I had rather not do that unless necessary. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. ---Harold
Let's start with the general question first:
All flavors of Windows can network with each other, but remember that WinME is
part of the Win98 family, whose networking got its start in Windows For
Workgroups 3.1, way back in 1992. (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_3.1x ) That was the Neolithic era of
networking (the 80's would have been the Paleolithic); but whatever you call it, networking was a
*lot* clunkier than it is now.
What many of us did back then was to set up two separate networking protocols: TCP/IP for internet access, and "NetBEUI," the NetBIOS Extended User Interface, for LAN access. NetBEUI is a non-routable protocol--- its packets can't move over the internet--- so confining local network communications to NetBEUI helped keep things secure back in the early days when security tools were less sophisticated and less readily available.
Windows XP doesn't speak NetBEUI by default, but you can optionally add it--- Microsoft does supply an official NetBEUI protocol for XP. Then, with your Windows PCs using NetBEUI for local communications, and TCP/IP for internet communications, both older and newer PCs can be made to easily talk with each other *and* to the outside world.
OTOH, you can set things up just with TCP/IP, but you'll have to place a lot more faith in your firewalls and other security tools; you'll be pairing new tech with old tech, and that sometimes yields uncertain results.
On the other hand, simply adding NetBEUI to XP pretty much solves the problem, with no loss of security for the XP box. NetBEUI is an old technology... but it works.
Now, it's possible you already did some of the above, and that brings us back to the specifics of your case: If all the software stuff is OK, then it's hardware. I'd suggest looking at the crossover cable. Better still, buy a simple networking hub. (They only cost $10 or so.) The hub lets you use normal cables, and simplify setup because the indicator lights show you when there's a connection, and when there's activity.
Anyway, you have lots of choices, and lots of help available:
XP-ME Networking:
http://www.google.com/search?q=me+xp+network
Using NetBEUI:
http://www.google.com/search?as_q=netbeui&as_sitesearch=langa.com
http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/netbeui.htm
Cables and Hubs:
http://tinyurl.com/fugfl
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=crossover+network+cable+ethernet
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