Random connectivity issue.

[Jayce]

My buddy brought his desktop over. He wants to be able to network his laptop and desktop so he can make file transfers. The desktop is all he brought, not realizing he needed the laptop too. No big deal, I'll show him what to do on the desktop and he can do the same on his laptop at home and then everything should work, right?

So I connected his desktop via hardwire to my network and used my laptop to try and network to him.

I was having some issues, despite setting up the network setup wizard on both machines.

Here is the rundown of what I'm experiencing...

His computer can only ping my mom's desktop and my one brother's desktop.
His computer cannot ping my laptop or my other brother's desktop.
Random... There's no reason as to why he could only selectively ping two yet not the other two.

However, he CAN ping my laptop... but only when I'm pinging him. If he and I ping one another at the exact same time, he'll get a response. I get a response regardless, however he only gets one if I'm pinging him.

All firewalls turned off.
All anti virus programs turned off.
Both were setup with the network setup wizard.
I did ipconfig /release/renew to all machines.
I even logged into my router, deleted his IP lease, and rejoined him to my network.

He also has a USB wireless adapter in the computer, to which failed to connect. Yet my USB wireless adapter when used in my desktop worked fine. I didn't try my adapter in his desktop.

In short - what the **** is going on?

 

[S0ULphIRE]

Make sure simple file sharing is not enabled, that solved my networking problems. I had 2 pcs, one could ping the other and one couldn't. Turned off simple file sharing, and suddenly it worked! (microsoft...)

 

[Jayce]

But that's the objective, is to be able to file share between the computers.

He wants to be able to \\192.168.x.x to the other computer and view the shares. That's the idea here.

 

[S0ULphIRE]

You will still be able to share files/folders on the network, just right click on whatever you want to share, click properties, go to the sharing tab, and share the folder. Simple file sharing is just, shockingly, file sharing simplified! If you disable it, it doesn't mean you can't share anything.

 

[Jayce]

Oh, sweet. Thanks!

We'll give that a shot. So if I \\192.168.x.x from his desktop to his laptop, we'd see available shares? Nice, that's the objective.