Ok, my wife just got a laptop and I would like to set it up so she can use the printer hooked up to our desktop. We have a westell 327w which both computers are hooked up to, the laptop using the wireless, the desktop just hard wired. What do I need to do to make this work. I've tried setting up a network, they are both using XP, but when I try to connect I can not access the other computer, nor find my shared printer. Was wondering if you guys have any ideas.

Do you have both computers assigned to the same network Workgroup?

Does each computer have a unique Computer Name?

I have found that sometimes you have to create a shared folder in order to get network connections to start working.

Besides what was said above, check the printer properties for sharing. Unless you tell it to share, nothing will be shared on your new network, printer or otherwise. I am not familiar with the Westell, so I am not sure if you need to do anything with it to make them see each other (I doubt it...most don't need anything special done).

i believe all of the Westell modems with two ports (one is USB, the other is Ethernet) will give you a public IP and do NOT put you in an internal private network where you could share things like this. i could be entirely wrong, but this has been my experience with the dual port Westell modems. IMO your best bet is dropping a few bucks on a wired or wireless router.

a quick way to tell if you're on the same internal private network is too look at the IP address of both machines. if it's a 192.168.x.x address, it's private. it might also be 10.x.x.x. that would also be private.

if you find that you're using a private internal network, you will need to go into the control panel and double-click the System icon, go to Computer Name tab and make sure they're both assigned to the same work group. once they are, see if it's possible to see each computer. it may be necessary to turn off any firewall software while tesitng just to make sure that a firewall is not blocking your communication between computers. if you need help turning off the built-in Firewall in XP, let me know.

Ok thanks for all the great advice guys. First, yes both are in the same workgroup and both have unique computer names. Sharing properties have been activated for the printer. I checked the IP and it is a private network. Once I turned off the Norton Firewall I was able to connect to the laptop from the desktop. But when I went to the laptop to look for the desktop under "view other computers in my workgroup" it only showed the laptop I could not find the desktop. I had the firewall turned off on both computers, but maybe there is something I missed?

when you're in the file browsing utility on the computer, go to the address bar where the folder name is listed and type in this address: \\computername

(replace "computername" with the name of the computer you want to connect to).

this is just a simplified way to locate a network resource if it won't show in the network places. an alternate way to do this is to type the IP address after the slashes. so, for example, if the IP of the laptop is 192.168.20.45, you could type \\192.168.20.45 and if the Windows Firewall and the Norton Firewall are off on both machines, you should connect also.

if a name is not showing up on one of the systems, it's possible the "TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper" service is turned off or disabled.

Thanks for all your help guys. I got it working today (didn't look at it for a few days) I think I still have to tweak my Firewall settings, but I can at least print from the laptop.

Now for the real dumb part, I was still having the issues of accessing the desktop, so when I went and looked at the properties for my LAN the file sharing was not checked :dohh: . Checked it and taadaa everything works, so now I feel really dumb for wasting all this time and effort, but thanks for all your help, my wife now thinks I am a computer god. :lol:

Even the computer gods fergit the check mark once in a while :rolleyes:

Glad your up and running....and in good graces with the boss :)