View Workgroup Computers Problem

Hi everyone. I'm having a problem linking my computers together over my intranet. I have four computers altogether: one running Vista; the other three run XP. The Vista machine can recognize the three XP machines just fine (going to start->network). The Vista machine never seems to have any problems accessing files on the XP machines. I should mention that I don't allow the Vista machine to be visible on the network, so I have not tested the connectability of that machine. Basically, the Vista machine is not of any concern.

Two of the XP machines are wireless, one is wired, and the Vista machine is wireless. They are all connected to the same Verizon Fios router.

The problem happens when I try to access any of the XP machines from one another. It seems to be a temperamental problem. One day it will happen, and another day it will seem to be just fine. Whenever I go into "My Network Places" on one of the XP machines, the other machines usually don't show up. Then, if I click "View Workgroup Computers", the machine will just show the hourglass and hang there for 10-20 seconds, and then give an error. Other times, when I click "View Workgroup Computers", the other computers on the network will show up. But when I click them, nothing responds for a number of seconds, and most of the time it will not let me into another machine. Other times, it will.

Sometimes, the "My Network Places" screen is as far as I can get without it hanging and then giving and error, and other times the "View Workgroup Computers" screen is the furthest I can get. Further still would be the computer I want to connect to, but there are also some hanging problems in navigation (hanging). I think it's strange because all three of the machines will do this. Although, that might be a good thing because it might be the same problem for all of them. Could this be a firewall problem? A UDP problem? A router problem? I'm really stumped because sometimes the linking will work, but most of the time it won't. Please help!!!!! Thanks in advance!!!!!

 

My friend and I had a peer to peer wireless network with our laptops for a while (when we were together) and this happened to us too. Hanging and delays in network related places (My Network Places, View Workgroup Computers) seems normal. And sometimes the other computer wouldn't appear on the other under the workgroup. Seemed the answer was time (as in, try again later). And we were both running XP.

So, sounds "normal" to me... there might be a fix, but if there is, I don't know it.

 

I find this often a firewall problem. What happens if you disable the firewall?

I recently ran into an issue where a network had Kaspersky internet security--even though all machines were set up to allow all connection from the local network, sometimes they would work and sometimes not.

I had to explicitly allow connection through the firewall from local ip addresses and everything started working again.

 

Thanks, de.1337, for sharing your experience. I'm a bit glad to know I'm not alone with this bug. I don't know of any fix either. But if I find one, I'll be sure to let you know.

Thanks, gerryf19, for the advice. I will try messing with the firewalls on said computers. And I will post back with the results.

Sorry for the delayed response! Again, thanks!