File sharing not working

I have two computers at home connected to the internet through an Asus wireless/wired router acting as AP only. I have dynamic IPs, so the two computers are on different subnet, one usually is 69.xxx.xxx.xxx, and the other is 216.xxx.xxx.xxx. Both computers have 'Workgroup' as workgroup name. Windows file sharing turned on on both computers, but they cannot see each other in the workgroup, let along see the shared folders.

So my question is: is it possible to have windows file sharing set up between the two computers with such network setup? If so, what am I missing? If not, what are the alternatives?

Another question, my router has an default IP of 192.168.1.1. How can I connect to it if my computers' IPs are in different subnet?

Thanks.

 

Both of your pc's have a public IP address. They would be more secure setting behind a firewall. Use your Asus wireless router, as normal operation.

It is possiable to share files over the public network , but I do not recommend due to security risk. See if you can ping your ip address. If you have respond to ping turned on, and get a response it is possiable to share files.

If you have a firewall running on your pc you will need to poke a hole in it for you to connect and share files. With this being public with DHCP very RISKY.

 

Would I get slower internet connections if I let my router act as a DHCP server?

And also, I use remote desktop, and it doesn't work if I set it up that way. I added TCP and UDP port 3389 as virtual server in the router configuration as sugguested by the manual, and it still doesn't work.

 

zx10guy:

I just have one router. Basically I'm using my router as just a hub, and my two computers are connected to the hub, the hub then in turn is connected to my ISP modem. My computers get IPs from my ISP. The router's IP is only for internal use.

About DHCP, what I meant is will my internet connections be slower with my router acting as a 'router' (assigning internal IPs, re-directing packets, etc) rather than a hub.

I did not set up the redirect rules, as I want to be able to remote into both computers from outside. And that's where I'm confused if I can do that or not.

 

Well something strange happened today, I had the setup I mentioned in the earlier post, and it was working fine for the two computers I have. (this was from last night)

Today I had one computer running and one was off, this evening, I came home and turned the other computer on, and it wouldn't connect! Nothing was changed from last night. It'll search for wireless networks, and it actually finds it, but cannot connect to it. Another strange part is, after it shows 'this connection has limited connectivity', it then changes the icon to connected! Even though I cannot actually connect.

I'm really puzzled as to what gives.

But anyways, I changed the router settings as you suggested, and set up port forwarding etc. so now I am able to connect to one computer through remote desktop connection from outside.

My question is, is it possible to set up the other computer with remote desktop connection also?

 

Well I set up port forwarding to one of the computers last night, and I had a friend from outside test it and it works. This morning I came into work, remoted in, it got to the password screen, let me enter password, hit enter, it seems to be fine up to this point, and then the screen freezes, I closed the session, and tried to re-connect, and now it wouldn't let me. Very strange.

 

there should be logs somewhere I can check to see what happened right?

I'll have to wait until I get home tonight and check what's going on.

 

I suppose I could use vnc, though I'm used to using rdc, and there are no downloading software, etc. Just more convenient if I could get it working.

zx10guy, you seem pretty knowledgible with this stuff, what is your trade?

Also, I'm still puzzled about the windows file sharing thing, now that all my computers are in the same subnet, I should be able to share files, right? Well it still doesn't work. I've never gotten file sharing working with wireless connections. Though I'm not sure if it makes a difference.

 

I think I did, I'll have to check again and make sure everything is set up correctly.

 

Been hectic last day, today I got a chance to check the settings.

I ran the 'set up home office' wizard, turned on file sharing. Both computers have a 'sharedDocs' folder.

From computer 1, I can see the other computer in the workgroup, and I can browse to the sharedDocs folder on computer 2 by \\ip, but not by \\computer2 name directly.

From computer 2, I can not even browse the workgroup, it gives me error "Workgroup is not accessible. You might not have permission to use the network resource..."

Two computers are connected through a router, one has an IP of 192.168.1.2, and the other 192.168.1.3.

Any idea why it's not working?

 

I've found the wizard to cause more problems than anything else. Try this:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=1605260&postcount=5

 

My setup is just like your article there kegobeer, but it still doesn't work. Only thing is I can't ping other computers on the internal network, maybe the router has this disabled or something.

But that shouldn't prevent me from sharing files and I don't think that's the problem, because I can access one computer with \\ip format.

 

The firewall usually causes this type of problem. Did you verify your firewall settings on all machines? Have you verified your router security settings?

 

One computer doesn't have firewall on, the other has Norton personal firewall turned on, and I've set RDC for Automatic connection, and I added 192.168.1.1-192.168.1.254 addresses to trusted sites.