I can remote in - but I can't ping?

[Jayce]

I was just trying to ping my brothers computer when I was trying something out on my computer and it failed. I thought maybe there was a problem with the platform differences, being I run Ubuntu and he runs XP Pro. So I fired up my XP Pro spare rig and pinged his computer - it also failed.

Out of curiosity, within Ubuntu, I started my remote desktop client and connected to his computer via IP address.

How is it I couldn't ping his computer with an XP and Ubuntu machine, but I can remote in via IP?

 

[Hefemeister]

perhaps a firewall stopping the ping request.

 

[Brinson]

I'd guess a firewall has closed the port ping is using as well.

Or that port isn't properly forwarded by the router.

 

[Jayce]

I was able to ping before, and I really don't think his firewall is enabled. If it is, it's the XP firewall. I know there's no 3rd party zonealarm firewall or anything of that nature.

EDIT - I just remoted in to both of their computers to check the firewall settings. I found out enabling ping through the windows xp firewall is really easy. The tricky part is, each computer had IDENTICAL settings. The one computer did NOT have this checked to enable, however, I could still ping it. The other computer I couldn't ping with it unchecked, though. But I checked them both and now I can ping both of them. I don't understand why when I uncheck them both, 1 works, 1 doesn't, but oh well... got em running now!