accessing files over wireless network

I am trying to access the files on my desktop computer to put onto my laptop.

I have a dsl internet connection (westell 2200 dsl modem), which then feeds to an airlink 101 wireless router.

My desktop is not connected to the router wirelessly, and my laptop is. The internet for both computers is working fine.

I setup a network, and from my laptop I can see my desktop in the workgroup, but I cannot actually access any files from it. Whenever I try to see the properties of my desktop (from the 'view workgroup computers' menu), or try to add the shared files to my network places, it says that it cannot find my desktop on the network.

I followed the steps on this site:
http://www.desktoppipeline.com/showA...leId=175800820

Everything seems like it should be working fine, except I cannot *actually* access files...I enabled file sharing for the files that I want shared (I just shared the main hard drive on each). Note I also cannot access my laptop from my desktop, but again, it shows up as being on the network.

I'm really not sure what the heck is going on. I don't know if I have provided enough information.

screen (from my laptop)

Another thing: when I go to IE and type 192.168.1.1 to connect to the router and examine settings (from the laptop) I don't always get the router...I am sometimes getting a typical 'page cannot be found' google search, which tries to find other results for me. Does this mean that perhaps my wireless isn't trained for the router properly? This confuses me further, because I have tried setting the wireless on both access point and 'ad hoc' (hot spot) configs (although I assume that for a router, I want the former setting). I was, ultimately, able to get into my router and set encryption and assign a unique SSID (wireless name), but it was a pain because half of the time I couldn't get to my router.

EDIT:
and, as a side note, I am getting the exact same problem when I completely disable the wireless networking card and just plug the damn laptop in manually...I am really frustrated right now.

This sounds like it could be a software firewall problem to me. Do you have software firewalls on either of the PCs connected up?

If so, they may be unnecessary as your router should have one built into it - check that in the documentation to make sure. But make sure you do have a firewall between you and the open Internet.

It may be that one has a firewall and it's configured to disallow the private IP range - have a look and make sure that both are set up to allow your private IP range (for me this is 192.168.2.1 to 192.168.2.100, but for you it could be 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.255 - you get the idea).

I know this caused me no end of problems when I set up my home network, but now everything's working fine :)

Can you get to the router's admin page from either machine?

Try this: Fire up a command prompt on both machines, and obtain their IP addresses. Use ipconfig to do this. Then try to ping each box from the other one.

Also ping 192.168.1.1 - the router itself.

Any results that don't get through (i.e. a stack of timeouts or "unreachable host" errors) could indicate a software firewall configuration problem.

EDIT: cancel what I wrote below, I just kept fiddling around, having a vague idea of what I needed to do, entering settings and restarting, and now it finally works (I don't know if I mis typed the ip range when entering it into zone alarm or what). I appreciate your help, your suggestions solved the problem, thanks!
This is pretty neat, it's sort of like I've got a little server setup, for my desktop has a couple of hard drives and vast amounts more disc space than my laptop, therefore I can just access everything anywhere in my house wirelessly without having to actually waste disk space on this little machine. Thanks again.


As you guessed, I do have software firewalls on each computer (a purchased copy of zone alarm pro for each).

I did, however, add the proper IP range in the trusted zone (firewall->zone->add ip range). Even after doing that, saving the settings, then rebooting, and then pinging from one machine to the other, it still is simply not working (all requests are timing out!)

Hmm, I am geniunely befuddled...

Excellent! Glad you got the problem sorted! Starting out with home networking can be a real pain, but once you've got it working it's nice to be able to share resources such as disk space, the printer, etc.

It usually boils down to firewall settings - it's a common thing to not remember about pre-existing firewalls on the individual PCs, with the result that they each block the other computer out (which is what happened to me).