Cannot Ping Vista Machine

[Chun Hei]

I have setup a small Home Wireless Network at home with Linksys wireless router. It is connected with a windows XP laptop wirelessly and a Vista Desktop with Ethernet cable. Now Vista is able to see XP on network but Xp cannot see Vista. It is not even able to ping Vista. Few guys told me to disable Firewall and Antivirus programs. Well I disabled Firewall and there is no Antivirus installed on any of my computer. So this cannot be the cause of problem.

I guess I’m missing some settings. Here is what I did, network discovery turned on and set to private. Also turned on all sharing options. I even unchecked the "local area connection" to unprotect it from the firewall. Still the problem exists. What am I missing more? Please help.

[SMichael]

There are few requirements to make successful file sharing. First and most important of them is to make all PCs on the same workgroup. See if your XP and Vista are on the same workgroup. Once done, go to Network and Sharing Center and cross check these setting:

• Network Discovery: ON
• Network set to Private
• File Sharing: ON
• Public Folder Sharing: ON
• Password Protected: OFF

[Jacob.M]

Hello Chun Hei,

Di you tried pinging Vista by IP Address and computer name both? Is it giving the same error message? Also are you able to ping XP computer from Vista properly?

[sunilnagle]

danielafortier

I understand that your Windows XP (wireless) is not able to ping vista which is wired to the router.

You will be able to ping from Windows Vista to Windows XP, because the ping reply packet from windows xp would be a unicast.

You will not be able to initiate the ping from windows xp, as the xp machine tries to broadcast for name resolution (if you are using netbios system name), if you are using ip address (then xp would use arp broadcast). Both these broadcast are blocked as xp is on wireless.

You need to create a static entry for netbios computer to ip address and then a static arp entry for ip address to mac address

Go to the following path

C: -> Windows -> System32 -> Drivers -> Etc

From the top menu, select Tools, Folder Options, View tab

Uncheck the option which says (Hide extensions for known file types)

Now, you should see a file which says: lmhosts.sam

select the file, press F2 (Function 2 Key) on you keyboard, remove .sam

Know the file should look like: lmhosts

Open the file in the notepad and the following line at the end of the file:

ip address of the vista machine system name #PRE

For example:

192.168.1.2 Sys3 #PRE

and close the notepad, and save

Now go to the command prompt and type:

nbtstat -R
nbtstat -c

you should see the system name to ip address mapping

--------------------

Now you need to create static arp entry, with the help of following command at the command prompt:

arp -s <ip address> <mac adress of the vista machine>

for example:

arp -s 192.168.1.3 00-1c-41-61-c8-36

Now type the following commands to confirm if the static enrty has been added:

arp -a


Now, you should be able to ping with the help of ip address and system name and thereby try to print wireless.