Unable to Network with WinXP

Question

Since getting my new iMac with Leopard on it I have been unable to do the following:
1. Find my HP printer that is connected to my WinXP machine.
2. Get ther WinXP machine to connect to my Mac (I get an error that says the Network Path is not found). Although the iMac shows up in the WinXP Workgroup (which I have named Vtphome).
3. By default, my older Mac running Tiger is in its own workgroup called "Workgroup" which is accessible by ALL the machines in my office. However the Leopard machine doesn't even show up in the generic "Workgroup".
This is extremely frustrating. I need to share/swap files during the course of the work day and use the printer connected to the one WinXP machine.
Does anyone have an idea of what the problems may be?
Thanks all.
Iogen
Message was edited by: IOGEN

Answer 1

Hello,
I wouldn't claim to be an expert, but I've got a couple of ideas for you. First, let's forget about the printer for now and let's see if we can get the iMac talking to the other machines.
1) JUST FOR THIS TEST - can you switch "off" all the firewalls on all of the machines. In Windows, go into Control Panel > Network Connections > Right click the connection > Click the Advanced tab > click Settings > Click OFF > Click OK, OK. If you have Windows XP SP2 it will complain that the firewall is switched off, just ignore it.
To turn off the firewall in Leopard, go to System Preferences > Security > select Allow all incoming connections.
I'm afraid I don't have a Tiger machine to hand, so I can't give precise instructions but you can use the search box in System Prefs to search for it.
Now that all firewalls are off, give the network a couple of minutes and then see if you can do what you want to do.
Don't forget, when you are done with these instructions to turn the firewalls back on, if you want to. I myself have a hardware firewall on my router between my network and the internet, so I leave all the computer firewalls off anyway. If you aren't sure - switch them all back on!
2) Set the Workgroup name in Leopard - go to System Preferences > Network > Advanced > WINS. Set a useful NetBIOS name if you haven't done so already. Personally, I would set all of the machines (Mac and PC) to the same workgroup name.
3) On the Leopard machine, enable File Sharing. Go to System Preferences > Sharing. Set a useful computer name, and tick File Sharing. I think it sets up a "Public Folder" by default as your shared folder but you can always add other shared folders by clicking the + underneath and selecting another folder to share.
Once all of the above is set up at the same time, in theory you should be able to do what you want to do with file sharing. A couple of points to bear in mind - for computer names / netbios names, avoid spaces and when it's set up, give the computers a few minutes to start talking before you try to browse the network on any machine.
For the printer... I've struggled with this under Tiger before, but got it working under Leopard. How are you trying to add the printer?
If you are still having problems, if you could let me know the version of XP you are using (Home? Pro? SP2?) that would be useful.
In closing, don't forget once you have finished the tests to turn the firewalls back on unless you are confident enough to leave them off. In general, if your network is behind a hardware router that has it's own firewall, it's OK to leave each computers firewall off. But research before you do that - don't blame me if you leave them off and bad things happen!
Hope you find this helpful
Chris