Win 2K and XP home networking

I know there should be an easy answer to this but I can't seem to find it! I have a desktop with newly installed Win XP and a laptop with Win 2K Pro. They are connected to the internet via an SMC router and cable modem. The desktop is connect to the router by wire; the laptop by WiFi. I have Zone Alarm installed on each computer and XP internet connection firewall disabled. Each computer can ping the other. File sharing is enabled on both computers.

When I try to explore 'My network places', I can see the home network (imaginatively named HOME!) on each computer, and when I double click on this on the laptop I can then see the desktop computer (and the laptop of course!). But double clicking on the desktop computer icon gives me the error message "\\Desktop is not accessible. The network path was not found".

When I double click on the HOME network from the desktop, I get the error message "HOME is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource."

All I want to do is to be able to share files between two computers in a simple way - what am I doing wrong?

I guess that since you can ping from one computer to another that you have made sure that ZoneAlarm is successfully configured for home networking. Just check that this is the case.

Can you try disabling simple file sharing. Open up My Computer, and click Tools, Folder Options. Click the View tab and untick Use simple file sharing at the bottom.

I must be missing somehting as when I go to Tools/Folder Options/View there is no option for Use simple file sharing?

Ah... are you using XP home then? You can only access this in XP Pro I think.

Have you got the guest account enabled on the XP computer?

Sorry, I should have said that it's XP Home! And Guest account is disabled.

Try enabling the guest account on the XP computer.

I switched on guest account.

I can see the workgroup in 'my network places' on my laptop (Win 2K) and can see both computers in the workgroup but can't access the other computer. Same error message as above.

Likewise with the desktop (XP Home) - I can see the workgroup but in this case I can't even access it to see the two computers in it, i.e. the desktop and the laptop!

You've already disabled Internet Connection Firewall, but could you just double check that it's disabled on all the connections? Also, could you just disable completely ZoneAlarm for a second?

I'll go offline for a minute or two while Zone Alarm is disabled (Paranoid? Moi?) and check these out again.

Internet connection firewall is disabled on my LAN connection but my Internet Gateway connection is enabled and I can't work out why as I thought I had disabled this yesterday! Surely I shouldn't need it when connecting via the LAN to a router and on to a cable modem?

But shutting down Zone Alarm makes no difference. Still the saem symptoms as before.

No, you shouldn't need an Internet gateway connection. Each computer should only have one local network connection which connects to the router. The router should then share out the Internet itself.

A few more things to try:

Check that on both computers you are using an account with exactly the same username and password.

Enable NetBIOS. Open up Network Connections from the Control Panel. Right-click your network connection and select Properties. Double click Internet Protocol TCP/IP and click the Advanced button. Click the WINS tab and make sure that "Enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP" is ticked.

HOw do I disable the Internet Conection gateway? I right click and click on 'disable' to no effect. I double click on the icon and then click on disable and again, no effect!

But that aside, I enabled netBIOS over TCP/IP and logged into XP using the same name and password, all to no avail!!!!

Could you take a screenshot of your Network Connections page? I'm not entirely sure what this gateway thing is.

Sorry for the delay - I was using my laptop for internet access!

No rush