Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with windows and network

TCP port switcheroo

AltReality — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 16:28:11 -0800

I would like to forward a local port to another local port...in effect, disguising one port for another. Is this possible? First, I'm on Windows XP SP3.

I would like any apps on my PC that try to make a connection through (for example) port 1234, to be routed out through port 4321 instead.
kinda like a hosts file, but for local ports, not IPs/DNS names.

I've been playing with NetCat and FPipe, thinking they might work, but I am obviously not getting the correct command line.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

A network between two adjacent buildings

eustacescrubb — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 08:44:19 -0800

I need advice on the best and least expensive way to have a network between two adjacent buildings. I'm part of a writer's residency, and the organization owns two houses next door to each other. We want to have one network, with one internet connection, between the two houses. One house has the only desktop there will be, and at least one WiFi-capable laptop. The other house has nothing but WiFi-capable laptops. There is a mixture of people running Windows XP and Mac OSX (nothing older than Leopard).

Ideally, I would like to have a blazing fast internet connection, and one router, to which the desktop is connected, and then maybe have some kind of powerful antenna to boost the WiFi signal over to the other house. It would be awesome if I could also get printer sharing, Bonjour (or whatever they're calling it this week) for Windows and Mac set up, file sharing, etc -- basically the ideal would be to have an honest-to-god network set up. I can do all that once I know how to share the network between the two buildings. Our org doesn't have a lot of extra money so I would like to keep the cost as low as possible.

How to "lock down" Windows on a home PC

ackptui — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 06:52:03 -0800

I've been wondering if it is possible to apply the same solution to the never-ending problem of Windows corruption (and the resulting degraded performance) that data centers use. As I understand it, Windows is booted over the network, so what happens to the local hard drive does not matter. Is there a way of doing the same thing to a home PC? Can you make a hard drive "read-only" after putting a bootable Windows image on it, and then use a seperate hard drive for data storage? I really detest the solution that MS sponsors (virus protection/firewall software) because it is just another thing that you have to buy which supports it's business partners. Any other ideas?

Networking Mac and Windows via ethernet

snarfois — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 08:18:55 -0800

Please help me troubleshoot my (cross-platform) home network. Networking already works via wi-fi, but not via ethernet cable. I'm networking a Windows XP PC to a Mac Mini running OS X Leopard. I have already succeeded in setting it up so that I can browse the Mini from Windows in "My Network Places" or via a mapped drive letter, but this is slow (802.11g) and I want to transfer large files.

I have bought a 20 meter cat5 cable (crossover) and connected the two computers, and disconnected the wi-fi adapter. Can I expect the network to work straight away without further configuration? Anyway, it doesn't. Please help!

(Irrelevant background: I only need to do this because the Mac Mini's DVD burner is useless -- I keep getting the "failed to calibrate the laser power level" error. So I'm forced to use the PC for burning.)

OSX can't see my XP drive

middleclasstool — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:50:15 -0800

Suddenly my Mac can't see my Windows PC, and I'm stumped. So I have a Windows PC (XP, latest service pack) and a new Macbook Pro (latest up-to-date version of Leopard). When I first got the Mac I was able to connect to my XP drive over wifi just fine by going to Finder and choosing "Connect to server" and typing in smb://bill (Bill's the XP PC's name, natch).

But suddenly it's not working anymore and I'm stumped. When I try to connect, using either that PC's name or IP address, it says it can't connect. When I ping that IP address, it sees it just fine.

The only thing I can think was awhile back I attempted directly connecting a Linux box to the Win PC to try to share its wifi connection. I did some tweaking of local network settings, but it never worked quite right, so I reverted changes. It could well be that something is still configured incorrectly on the Windows box, but damned if I can see what.

Any ideas?

During reboots Win 2000 desktop box is not visible on network unless I log into it

flyby22 — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 21:45:26 -0800

I have a few Windows 2000 desktop boxes on my home network. One of them has been having a problem for sometime where after it reboots, I need to log into the box for it to be visible on the network. Otherwise pings from other machines keep failing. I usually log in using the Administrator account. All of my windows boxes are pretty musch same config having ZoneAlarm firewall, AVG antivirus, spybot, spywareblaster. I am wondering how should I try to figure out where the problem is. I have seen netbt 4319 errors in event log, which is about being another machine on the network same name. BUt I have tried shutting down all machines except my XP laptop which does not have same name at all and the main network problem i described earlier still persists. Any pointers would be very appreciated.

Users cannot connect on Windows Server 2003

panboi — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 01:39:41 -0800

I've been asked to look at a network that runs three machines (XP) which apparently stopped working: Users cannot connect to the server (Windows Server 2003) due to some connection error. I've been asked to look at a network that runs three machines (XP) which apparently stopped working on Monday. The power supply to the internet router also decided to stop working, then the server (Windows Server 2003 SP2) deciding that no machine could connect to it.

The server also fell over towards the afternoon with blue screen issues. I suspected hardware issues somewhere. I cloned the drive and replaced what appeared to be a glitchy video card.

So the server is now functioning OK - but still have the original problem. Attempts to access the networked drives bring up this specific error message: "This connection has limited or no connectivity. You might not be able to access the Internet or some network resources". Unplugging and reconnecting the network cables causes the PC to think for a while trying to assign an IP address but this then leads to the same error message.

It could be that something on the server setup has been corrupted, but I'm stumped as to how to solve the problem.

Windows XP, XP64, Vista, and Linux machines refuse to play nicely together.

Nixie Pixel — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 01:02:09 -0800

Windows XP, XP64, Vista, and Linux machines refuse to play nicely together - Why can't I get them to ping each other? I am trying to hook up a mixed network for file/print sharing, network gaming and the like, but I seem to be having basic IP issues and I'm pulling my hair out trying to figure out the problem! I am attempting to set up a mixed wired/wireless network spread out across multiple rooms. Currently I am using a D-Link DGL-4300 wireless router to share the (single) IP address given by my ISP through NAT to the wired/wireless network. To be thorough I'll give you the network topology (though I have already ruled out hardware issues):

Three rooms are wired back to the network closet using the T568B standard, and connected via cat-5 cables to the DGL-4300. In room A one Windows XP64 Pro SP2 computer (for security Windows Defender only) is connected directly from the wall jack.

In room B one Windows XP SP2 computer (Comodo Firewall) is connected via a 5-Port Linksys hub.

In room C one Xbox 360 and one Windows XP Home SP2 computer (Norton 360 installed) are connected to the wall jack via a Dynex 10/100 5-Port fast ethernet switch, and chained to that is a Netgear 8-Port 10/100 fast ethernet switch. Connected to this are one Windows XP64 Pro SP2 machine (Comodo Firewall), one Windows XP Home SP2 machine (Comodo Firewall), and usually one D-Link wireless router (with DHCP server turned off, to extend the wireless network) though this is currently disconnected to help troubleshoot the wired network problems.

Also in the building are another Xbox 360 connected wirelessly and three laptops. One is XP Home SP2 (norton), one Vista Home Premium (Norton), and the last one is the laptop I have been using to test the physical connections and hardware - I'm dual booting Vista Home Premium (Comodo) and Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex (8.10).

Here is the problem: Every single machine sees the internet without problems. They all ping the router, see web sites, reach the DNS server and sites by both name & IP address, and generally are happy when it comes to things outside of the trusted network. However, only one computer on the network is able to be pinged, by every other computer - the XP64 machine in room A. I can't test outgoing pings from the Xbox 360s, but they cannot be pinged.

The only exception to this is my Vista/Linux laptop - when booting to Linux, the Linux machine is able to be pinged by any computer on the network (and it happily and easily sees the PC in room A, far less painfully than networks setup on Windows...). However, booting it to Vista makes it unreachable. It makes no difference if the machine is connected wirelessly or through a wire.

I've played with the network hardware and cabling, and none of it makes a difference. The machines themselves (and more properly, their OSs) are having problems seeing each other. It doesn't matter if I put them on the same workgroup or not (which I have,) or if NetBIOS over TCP/IP is turned on (which it is). I have also tried both defining "trusted zones" and completely shutting off firewall protection for the PCs, without any change in this behavior. I have tried setting static IPs on the same address range, with no luck.

The computers/Xbox 360s are all on the same IP address range (192.168.0.x), with no IP conflicts due to static IPs being set (when setting these I put them on a range outside of the DHCP range), and all are set to subnet mask 255.255.255.0. All have the proper gateway set.

The affected PCs can ping themselves, ping the router, and ping the PC in room A (and, if it is booting to Ubuntu, the Linux laptop), but not ping each other. The PC in room A and the Linux laptop can ping each other, but cannot ping any of the affected devices on the network. I have two gaming PCs in room C which can see network games such as Sins of a Solar Empire and Neverwinter Nights 2 which each other host, but not ping each other.

(While previewing the message, I had an idea, and tried an Ubuntu Live CD on the PC in room B - sure enough, upon boot it was reachable by other PCs on the network. So the problem is Windows-specific, and definitely not hardware/location-specific)

Can anyone help me figure out why they can't ping? I can probably figure out the rest, once this basic question is resolved.

Sorry for the length of this question, but I figured I ought to be thorough. By the way, if someone has a suggestion for a forum where I can get personal help from a more targetted user base, I am happy to try that as well.

Thank you so much!

Add leaves and fruit, but don't cut the branches

bartleby — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 09:27:56 -0800

On a Windows share with a complex file tree, is there any way to lock down the tree so that folders can be added by all, but the directory structure itself can't be changed? People keep dragging folders or whole sections of a directory tree on a network file server and leaving them inside another location on the tree; so the HR folder and its subfolders suddenly end up inside the Accounting section. (No one admits to moving them, of course.)

Users need to be able to create their own subfolders, and add documents and move them around throughout the tree; but I'm trying to find a way to allow this while also blocking the ability to move folders from one location in the tree to another, or otherwise make change the directory structure.

I'm not coming up with anything; is there something obvious I've missed?

How do I enable simple file sharing on Server 2008 and stop my network from crashing?

Magnakai — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 09:15:12 -0800

How do I transparently share files from a Windows Server 2008 box to several XP computers? I want it to stop asking for a username and password when people try to access files. Also, can anyone point me in the right direction to solving this weird network issue I've been having? I've been assigned to run the IT stuff for the small business that I part-time for. They have four machines running Windows XP. One of them used to host all the office documents in a shared folder, enabling it to be accessed from across the network. They're connected via brand-new Cat 6 cables going into a wireless router, which is connected via another brand-new cable to a rather ancient 4-port ADSL modem.

They now have need of a dedicated server, and because of some incoming (in the next year) custom written software, it needs to be Windows Server 2008. I built them a low-cost machine with stable components and it seems to run fine.

I hooked it up to the network, connected to current share and transferred all the office files over. I then shared that directory. I created accounts that have the same username and passwords as the default accounts on the XP machines. I gave access to the office file directory to Everyone. At the top of that screen, it specified that if you selected Everyone, it wouldn't ask for a username or password. But it does!

When they were shared from the previous workstation, you could happily access them without entering a password. Is there any way to revert to this level of behaviour?

My second question follows from this - I tried accessing the folder from one of the comptuers on the workgroup, and I then entered Administrator and the password for the server into the request box that popped up. It connects absolutely fine. But once it's connected, at regular but random intervals, it seems to hang the workstation for a period of time and kill the network connection for the server. Other computers were able to access the network and connect to the internet fine. I can reproduce this problem Can anyone give me pointers to trying to diagnose this error, as obviously it makes the whole endeavour rather useless!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, and thank you for reading this long question.

Help me learn to be the sysadmin I need to be!

Reverend John — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:34:00 -0800

What do I need to know and how should I learn it? I am the "IT" guy at my company, a small supplier of building materials, with an office staff of about 10, and a warehouse crew of about the same. Problem is I'm underqualified. Before I arrived here the network and all workstations were set up and supported by an outside consultant. When I arrived my primary responsibility was maintaining our web site, hosted elsewhere, and minor IT support when I could answer or fix immediate problems without having to call the consultant. I was A+ and Network+ certified around 4 years ago, but obviously thats not all that impressive, and really I haven't done much in depth there, haven't been building or fixing machines or doing significant network administration.

Unfortunately over the past year or so the consultant has gradually become less accessible to the point of being essentially useless, and I have recurring nightmares about something disastrous happening to our server or network and not being able to fix it, losing all of our business data, etc. I chatted with my bosses, the owners, last night and they've OK'ed me to upgrade my skills in order to make sure everything here is working well and secure.

Currently we have a single server running Windows 2000 server. The workstations are an amalgamation of Win XP pro and Win 2000 workstation. We have a 24 port switch tying it all together, and some networked printers, and a DSL connection to the internet. The server provides a shared directory, Active Directory services, DHCP, and hosts our business application server.

Given what we have my current plan is to self-study towards becoming an MCSA on Windows 2000 server. Some of the win 2k tests are discontinued, but since thats what we're running I figured I would work first on the tests which aren't discontinued yet, like 70-270 Admining Win XP, then working thru the self study books on Win 2k Server like 70-215 Adminning Win 2k server and 70-218 Managing a Win 2k Server network, as if I was going to try to take those exam. Then after I was up to speed on what we're currently running I might want to learn more on what we might want to move to in order to make sure our network is not too obsolete or insecure.

So, what I want to know from you technical mefites is, is my plan reasonable? Am I being foolish to consider studying for obsolete tests in order to fill out my knowledge of the stuff we already have? Is there a better way I should approach this?

Help! I feel overwhelmed and I live in constant fear that I'm going to come in one day and be told "nothing works, fix it" and not be able to.

Windows won't serve to Mac

airplain — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 09:45:41 -0800

Problem: OSX to Windows direct-wired ethernet connection works, but the Mac can't see the shared PC drives. The PC and the Mac are both normally on wifi but the Mac's Airport is turned off now. Both machines have manual addresses set on their ethernet NICs, with direct CAT5 cable between the two; PC = 10.0.0.1/255.255.255.0; Mac=10.0.0.2/255.255.255.0. (The cable isn't a crossover, because OSX now manages that.) Ping works in both directions (i.e. from either machine to the other.) I want to connect from the Mac to the PC's share D, so I do flower-K to connect to smb://10.0.0.1/D.

First time I tried the Mac's dialog showed "Connecting" then radio buttons for 'guest' or "name + password". Because the PC's guest account was off I tried the PC's name+pw but OSX rejected it (and other names+pws) and said "not allowed..." [NOT the exact words, and I can no longer get this dialog].

I enabled the PC's guest a/c and tried the guest radiobutton on the Mac's Connect to Server. No success. Now the Mac doesn't ask for name and pw at all, and there's no guest/ID+PW choice nor radiobutton. Every time I try to connect from Mac to smb://10.0.0.1/D (or other share on the PC) the response after trying to connect is "Connection Failed. You do not have permission to access this server."

Windows Local Security Settings policies are not assigned. Do I need to change any other security settings?

As mentioned Airport is disabled on the Mac, but it's active on the PC. Another Mac here can share the PC just fine over wireless; no problem logging in - pretty much any username+pw works, it's not picky.

I need a fast connection though, to get stuff onto the new goodness of Mac (fresh yesterday. Yum.)

Hw/software: Macbook 13"; 2.1 GHz core duo; 1GB; internal NIC; running MacOS X .5.2. Windows XP Pro sp2 on homebuilt PC (ASUS mobo, Athlon 1500+ @ 1.3 GHz) 512 MB; Intel PRO/100 NIC. (Both OSes have current updates.)

Windows Vista is laughing at me...

cgomez — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 21:37:02 -0800

Server/network/IT-Filter? Windows Vista keeps, or more specifically explorer.exe drops my network transfers, how can I fix this or what is the best Explorer replacement? Also, how can I make Windows Server 2008 more useful on the small scale (more inside of course) ... I previously asked about a storage array for my personal network and ended getting another computer and converting the old one into a RAID-5 Windows Server box.

Here's what's on the network:

Computer 1: Windows Server 2008, RAID-5 Disk Array (2.3TB usable).
Computer 2: Windows Vista Ultimate (used as a media center/personal computer)
Computer 3: MacBook Pro

All of this is linked up through 802.11n/gigabit ethernet.

Question 1: Windows Vista randomly drops network transfers to the server (explorer.exe). This usually happens when I'm moving 5GB or more of data which is often. Essentially it stops transferring and when I press 'cancel', it locks up and I can't kill explorer.exe from the task manager. The only way to recover is restart.

This is, however, not a problem with Windows Networking. I've tried a different file manager called "Directory Opus" which is great and solves my issue. Network transfers never fail. The issue is the program costs $85 US and I'm not going to steal it :-\. So, does anyone have ideas on how to solve explorer.exe or is there a more affordable file manager/Explorer replacement? Also, I've tried this with and without SP1.

Question 2: I'm using Windows Server 2008 as a storage and print server. I've toyed a bit with the virtualization features but I'm looking to see if there are features that might be useful outside a true-server environment for my setup.

(all software licenses are legitimate, piracy is bad, m'kay)

How to save time with auto-configuration for laptops?

fsmontenegro — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 09:07:32 -0800

How can I reduce the hassle of reconfiguring multiple applications in my Windows laptop when switching between networks (home, office, VPN, hotel, ...) ? What options are people using for automatically (or as close to it) reconfiguring their laptops when switching between networks? This is not just the case of using DHCP (most places do nowadays) or changing IE proxy configs with registry changes. I'd like to automate as much as possible the following:
- proxy configuration for IE and Firefox
- connection settings on Miranda (IM)
- mounting or not mounting certain network shares
- choosing the default printer

So, for example, if I'm "home" there's direct access outbound and I can mount my home share, but if I turn on the VPN the share gets disconnected (because we don't use split tunneling). Now, at a "hotel" I may get direct access but not want to try to mount home shares.

Ideally, I'm looking for a tool that would monitor something (maybe the current default route) continuously and be able to trigger these configuration changes or commands based on location.

Any ideas? I thought about using Perl, but I'd much rather support some existing community project than start from scratch...

Is DSL fast enough to play WOW?

vilcxjo_BLANKA — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 11:11:36 -0800

My son is having terrible problems playing WOW. He gets framerates of about 1-2fps, which is ridiculous. Help me diagnose the problem. My son is having terrible problems with performance in WOW. I have no experience with Windows computers, so I have no real way to approach a diagnosis. It's a big problem for him, as his guild makes fun of him and laughs at the fact that he's often fighting monsters who are already dead. (I don't know epsilon about WOW, so I just take his word for it.) It's always been slower than he would like, but the last few months have been a disaster. I thought it was slow servers, or maybe latency between the Eastern US (MA) and his guild, which is in the Western Part of the the US (CA) but that's just a guess.

I have a tiny home network with three computers - four if you count the linksys router, and five if you count the Nintendo Wii. The Wii is not often on the net, though. The router is connected to the internet through 1.5/384 DSL from Speakeasy. The router is a linksys running the White Russian release of Open WRT. I have one slow linux computer, one really slow linux computer and one slowish XP computer, which is the one I'm interested in.

I have several conjectures. First, I think it's possible that 1.5/386 DSL is just too slow to run WOW. I may have to upgrade to a faster internet service. Second, I think it's possible that the computer he's using is running a bunch of services which are not needed, and which are causing it to be slow. I don't know the windows equivalent of "ps -aux". I don't even know the windows equivalent of xterm, but I presume there is one. Third, I think it's possible, but unlikely, that excessive network traffic caused by spam (see below) is saturating the connection and killing his performance. Fourth, it's possible, but I think unlikely, that the router is slow.

The really slow linux computer has a web server and a mail server. The mail server seems to get a lot of spam, which is properly thrown away. (I periodically check various testing websites to see if it's an open relay, and I seem to have it configured properly.) The problem does not go away or even improve when I disable the mail server, though, so I don't think this is the problem. It's always possible that the internet connection is still overmatched with spam, even though there is no server to read the messages. Maybe the best test would be to just block the SMTP port temporarily.

The slow linux computer doesn't actually use the net much, except for reading blogs. I sometimes download music from emusic, which causes him no end of grief, but I expect that. The problem happens even when I'm not doing anything, or if the computer is powered off and unplugged.

I don't really have a fancy firewall on the router. I just created iptables commands to forward ports and do NAT from the router to the other computers. I have not done any capacity testing on the router, but it's a very recent LinkSys router - the one with 32Mb of RAM - so I don't suspect its speed at all. Maybe I should reinstall LinkSys' firmware and see if that clears up the problem.

So, those are my conjectures. Maybe someone else has a better suggestion, or can tell me more about Windows.

Possible uses for idle XP box

Hat Maui — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 03:10:22 -0800

What are some things I could do with an old XP box? I just got a new iMac and I'm left wondering if there would be any useful purpose to which I could put my four-year-old XP Dell to... or should I just scrap it?

It's a 2.4 gig Celeron with 700 megs of ram, a dvd and cd drive, and I have two external hard drives for it, plus a monitor (that i'll now likely use with the mac). Oh, and a 40 gig internal.

It'd be too slow to use it as a dedicated media streaming box over wifi, right? (at least, for video anyway).

Any other thoughts as to what use I could put it to?

What was that password again?

al_fresco — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 17:02:03 -0800

In Windows XP, is there a way to see the password that is stored in the system to log into a wireless network? In OS X, this is easy – one just goes to Keychain Access, looks up the entry, and by entering an administrator password one can see the given password. Is there a way to do this in XP? I'm not a Windows person, so don't know where to look.

This is for a client for whom I set up a wireless network over a year ago. She created the password and it's stored in her system, as she connects fine to the network. She now wants to get another computer onto the network. I guess I need to start saving clients' passwords.

Printing to a Windows printer from a Macbook on the netowrk?

DandyRandy — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 19:35:33 -0800

I'm trying to set up my Macbook running OS X 10.4.10 to use a printer that's connected to my Windows XP Home machine over my home network and my inner geek is failing miserably. How can I get this working? The printer is a Canon Pixma IP6700 that works marvelously on the Windows machine. The Macbook can see the printer just fine, but I cannot figure out how to tell the Macbook that this printer is a Canon. The only options I seem to have are several old Apple printers, some HP printers and a few Epson types, in addition to a driver labeled 'generic'. The Mac driver I downloaded from Canon says that it only works with a printer connected via USB or Bluetooth. Printing as it is results in either nothing or a few blank pages being fed with no printing. How/where do I load drivers for a network printer? Or am I approaching this all wrong?

Wireless tangles

jonathanbell — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 02:12:30 -0800

Simple network rebuilding: what's the best way out of a wireless network muddle? I run a wireless network at home, with a hub broadcasting to a PC desktop and a PC laptop, as well as a Slimserver (connected to an mp3 library on the desktop) and occasionally a Nokia N95 using the network as well. If wireless networks could get tangled, this one has; it's a mess. For reasons I completely don't understand, it is incredibly unreliable, with frequent drop-outs. While I can usually get both computers online, they often can't see each other (ideally I'd like to share files between them in selected directories, which I can, sometimes), and the Slimserver has vanished out of sight. What's more, my WEP key has gone, leaving the network open to all and I can't seem to fix it. On top of this, every few minutes a window pops up asking me to log on to a Virtual Private Network, and blocks all web access until I close it.

My question. I'm pretty sure all the hardware is OK - this seems like a software thing. How can I break it all down and start again from scratch? Basically, what order should I do things? Is there a wizard or something that allows me to start from zero and build up a reliable network again? Are there any tools out there for managing connections in a more transparent way that the multiple Windows menus and boxes? Many thanks in advance.

How to password protect and page count a printer

DJWeezy — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 16:15:40 -0800

Network a printer and password protect and page count the prints. Networking filter: I have seen this thread. i am not new to networking but it is not my network, it is the universities. What i would like to do is purchase a printer and either hook it to the network or I have a spare computer. I could hook it to the computer or network. I want it to be accessible from our dorm. It needs to be password protected and be able to count pages sent per person. That way when the ink runs out I will figure out who printed how much and bill them.
fyi this is the printer I am thinking of getting
any ideas on what software to use?

Oh, please help Me(fi)!

tmcw — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 11:57:00 -0800

So I thought I knew computers... but this network is killing me. I can connect, full strength, etc. But I can't actually connect to the internet. My IP is 192.168.10.32. Using an 850G (motorola) WAP, Cox SurfBoard modem. Other computers (this one, which is 192.168.10.28, connect fine, it seems. There's no encryption on the network right now. I'm connecting to the right one. One thing that's in the mix is that I'm using a Thinkpad that, since the last set of changes that I've done, uses Windows to manage wireless connections, not Access Connections. Access Connections seems to do some things though, but it can't detect networks at all. Ipconfig is intermittently giving me a device error.

My laptop connects, as I said before, but can't get out to the internet. I don't know what the f is wrong. Any clues as far as which device should be the DHCP server? Any settings that are default / recommended, standard?

Yes, I know it should have encryption. But I'm desperate, and I just want a connection any way that it can work.

And school starts in two days. I'm pretty pissed. Any help?

Disordered HTML packets?

jarsyl — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 21:10:10 -0800

What is wrong with our Windows 2003 webserver? The web pages it serves are usually (but not always) missing some of the HTML when viewed on other machines, playing havoc with the layout. What's going on? Network guru filter: one of the webservers I manage and develop for at my office has developed a very strange problem after a change in the network interface.

Web pages served by it (PHP 4, Apache 2.1, Windows 2003 Server) sometimes are missing pieces of the HTML or even show the HTTP header in the middle of the page. If the same page is repeatedly reloaded, about 1/3 of the time it will display correctly. The problem pages all use AJAX as far as I can tell.

This application drew no complaints before the switch. It was attached to two separate networks through two ethernet cards. Now it is using only one card and the settings on the router or something are supposed to limit the access of one group of users who were previously segregated onto one network.

Some more data points:
1) on my multiboot Windows XP workstation the problem shows in both in IE and Firefox.
2) when the workstation is booted into Linux the same pages show no problems.
3) again, no problems with the same pages when viewed in either browser running on the server itself.

Unfortunately I am a web developer, not a network engineer, so I'm not even sure what keywords would describe this problem, let alone know what it could be caused by. The network staff at my office have not been able to help much yet, although they're coming in next week to take a look. I'm now looking at using ethereal to try and see if packets are somehow being disordered, but I'm really over my head. Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

Fix my WiFi

punishinglemur — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 12:33:48 -0800

Suddenly, my laptop and wireless network aren't playing well together. Over the past few days, my laptop has been having a great deal of trouble connecting to my home wireless network. While surfing a night or two ago, I noticed that pages had stopped loading. I checked the wireless connection icon in the status bar, which showed that I had gone from a connection to the Internet to a "Local Only" connection. However, I could still access the Internet from my desktop, which is plugged into my router with an Ethernet cable.

Today, when I woke up, my laptop was no longer connected to my wireless network. I chose to connect to the network, which gave me Internet access for only a minute before it reverted to "Limited Connectivity." I disconnected and reconnected again, but after several minutes of waiting and a message from Windows that it was taking longer than usual to connect, I couldn't get a connection. I cancelled the process and started again, which eventually gave me an Internet connection. But once again, it only lasted for about a minute before dumping me back to "Limited Connectivity."

I have a laptop running Windows Vista Home Premium with an Intel Pro/Wireless 3945ABG wireless adapter. The router is a Motorola WR850G. I have another laptop and a wirelessly connected desktop that both have no problems with connecting. Unless I'm forgetting something, the only changes that have happened since this problem started were the purchase of the other laptop and installation of the latest round of Windows Updates.

What's wrong? How can I get my wireless back?

NetworkAdminFilter: Goodbye NetWare - Hello MS and Associates

bleucube — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 13:12:11 -0800

We are migrating from NetWare to Microsoft for our Network Operating System. We currently use ZenWorks for Desktop and Servers. We use the full set of tools for application deployment, remote control, imagining, server management, policy automation...basically the whole gambit. What do you recommend for replacement? Our corporation has grown considerably in the last couple years and has become too complex for it's own good. We are on the cusp of change and it looks like we will be dumping NetWare instead of moving to OES. I know zenworks can run on windows but we are looking to move from eDirectory to Active Directory. I need a suite that replaces ZenWorks and other tools that we might need after migration for ease of administration.

Some helpful info:
600 Windows XP Desktops
60 Windows XP Laptops
1700 Users
16 NetWare 6.5 servers
25 Windows 2003 servers
(Big citrix farm and heavy duty SQL Cluster)

Management Suite:
I looked at SMS and Altiris. SMS seems rather complex and does not offer all services that ZenWorks does. With Altiris you need to buy a lot of extras but seems workable. Landesk is perhaps another option.

Others tools we currently use:
GFI Event Manager - for notification of event log errors
Watchtower to monitor the network

Thanks!

Performance issues when sharing digital media between computers at home

fsmontenegro — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 12:28:51 -0800

Help me troubleshoot performance issues with digital media sharing between two computers. Hi there!

I need some help to resolve a performance issue. It may be host or network related, not sure yet.... read on.

We've finally added a small computer in the basement so we can watch media while exercising (there's a treadmill there that we promised to use more often!). The issue is that the current performance we get when accessing files on the main familiy PC is not that great.

The new PC is a mini-PC based on the CV860a motherboard. It has 512MB PC133 memory and is running xubuntu 7.04 installed in a 2GB CompatFlash card. The main PC is an Athlon 2000 running XP. We currently use SMB to share the PC files and use smbfs on the miniPC side to mount it.

Connectivity is as follows:

basement | 1st floor | 2nd floor
ubuntu---wired-->WRT54g---wireless--->DlinkDI524---wired--->Windows

All wired is 100Mbps and the wireless piece is 802.11g with WPA-PSK.

The performance we get watching a high-def file (640x360 WMV or AVI) is as follows:
- on the mini-PC, local media via USB key - good
- on the mini-PC, remotely via smbfs - poor, very choppy (unviewable)
- on another PC (wireless laptop, 1GB Pentium M) - good

So:
- Is it a network performance issue? If so, why is the performance on another laptop good?
- Is it a host performance issue? If so, why do local files play OK?

Any suggestions on how to proceed? Ideally, we'd like to avoid making local copies of the media. I haven't done any performance tuning on the ubuntu mini-PC yet.

Thanks!!!!