What's a Blog?

I apologize in advance for the length of this post, hopefully there will be a few folks both knowledgeable enough and patient enough to wade through this and point me in the right direction.

All of my problems began when I switched from DSL to Cable internet service. With my DSL service I was provided a DSL modem which also contained a 4 port Ethernet switch. There was basically no configuration involved. I connected 2 PC’s and an Ethernet printer, all of which were configured to obtain an IP address automatically, to the switch. However although the computers and printer’s were setup to obtain an IP address automatically the switch merely assigned IP addresses based on which of the four Ethernet ports the device was connected to. Whatever was connected to Port 0 was always assigned 192.168.1.100, Port 1 was always assigned 192.168.101 and so on.

When I went to install my printer I first attempted to scan the network for it but the Printer Setup Wizard apparently couldn’t find it so instead I configured a TCP/IP port on each PC and installed the printer that way. I operated for many years in this configuration without problem until I switched to Cable.

I bought both a cable modem as well as a 4 port router (in retrospect I might have been better off just getting a switch or even a hub but I allowed myself to be convinced by the salesperson that a router was a better solution and of course it cost a bit more but whatever). All in all the cable modem together with the 4 port router was pretty much the same configuration as the combined DSL modem and switch however the issue was that instead of IP addresses being assigned simply based on which physical port the device was connected to, the IP address was “leased” for a default 2 hours up to a maximum of 48 hours. After the lease time is up then the IP addresses will go back in the pool ready to be reassigned to whichever device is first turned on (I assume).

The problem with this was again the fact that the Printer Setup wizard could not find the printer on the network and so again I configured a hard coded IP printer port on each PC which worked just fine until at some point when the IP leases ran out and the printer for whatever reason was not assigned the same IP address.

I could simply configure multiple Printer IP ports and simply change the port of my printer every 2 days when and if the IP address changed. However the printer is a multifunction and has a scanner and while simply changing the port worked for the printer the scanner had to be uninstalled and then reinstalled to the new printer IP each and every time this occurred.

But anyway I did work perfectly fine in this configuration for awhile before finally I became sick of uninstalling and then reinstalling my scanner each time this happened that I decided to do something else.

One thing I could have done that would have been more straightforward would be to have attached the printer directly to one PC via USB and then share it out so that the other PC could use it but that meant I would have to have both PC’s on when I wanted to print from the other PC. I didn’t care for this solution.

Another possible solution was to assign a fixed IP address outside of the range of addresses controlled by the Routers DHCP server in which case the PC’s could continue to obtain their IP’s automatically but could also print to a fixed IP. However this really doesn’t fix my issues since because it has a memory card reader that I do need to access, this solution has the problems that the solution I’m currently trying to get to work has.

The solution that I’m trying to get to work now is to disable the routers DHCP server and assign fixed IP’s for all three devices, both PC’s and the Printer. This is where my hell really began. Basically throughout all of the following different configurations that I tried I have always been able to access the internet from both PC’s and I have always been able to print from either PC to the Printer as well as scan items from the Printer to either PC. They only thing that I have not been reliably able to do is to access the local workgroup and see all three devices.

I have tried every option that I could think of as well as every option that I could stumble into over the internet related to being “unable to access workgroup” and every permutation of the wording that I could google.

I’ve turned on and off all of the following services in so many different permutations that I’ve lost count, certainly in the hundreds.

Application Layer Gateway Service
Computer Browseer
DHCP Client
DNS Client
IPSEC Services
Network Connections
Network Location Awareness
Remote Access Connection Manager
Server
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
Terminal Services
Windows Firewall/Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)

and probably a few more that I forgot about.

In conjunction with what seems like every possible permutation of the above services I’ve also both enabled and disabled simple file sharing (Explorer > Tools > Folder Options > View > Simple File sharing) as well as configuring the network connection to both enable or disable NetBIOS over TCP/IP.

As if the above matrix of possibilities were not enough I’ve also enabled and disabled my Kaspersky Firewall. Changed the network back and forth between “Trusted” to “Local” (i.e. only file and printer sharing allowed), as well as removing Kaspersky entirely.

Throughout all of the uncountable and unknowable permutations of settings I’ve had  many them work to various extents. In some cases I see all three devices and can read shared memory devices from each. In other cases I can only see both PC’s but not the printer, in other cases I can see only the PC I’m “on” at the time and in other cases I see the workgroup but it’s empty and finally in some cases the workgroup is ‘unaccessible”.

The problem is that even though I’ve found a number of different configurations that cause me to be able to see all three devices and be able to read shared files from any one to the other, the problem is that when I save that configuration and simply restart the PC I’ve never had a single one of them that continued to work after a restart so each power up I go off tweaking an number of different items until something finally made it work but again on reboot I was always back to square one and the same changes no longer worked.

The one thing I haven't really done is played with lmhosts and WINS.

So anyone got any clue here?


Comments (Page 2)
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on Jun 24, 2011

Mumblefratz
Not sure about this. Is this a router function?

Yes.  If you're not using any wireless devices, it's moot, however.  Those settings are just to secure the wireless signal (to the extent you can).

I suppose your efforts at running 'bare minimum services' are to be applauded, but from a practical point of view I'm unclear how much you really gain from those efforts.

I just checked TaskManager & there are currently 53 processes running and I can't say as I have any speed issues with routine use (until apple's sync client runs, sucks up 60-80% of the CPU and sometimes crashes, which is at least once ever day or two, but that's another story).

on Jun 24, 2011

As I said in my last post: "keep it simple"!

If you can't establish basic network connectivity, then all of these other "issues" and "solutions" are irrelevant! The default router configuration should be acceptable for any basic home network. Static IP addresses are just not worth the grief. With DHCP each system automatically receives an IP address along with the equally important subnet mask, gateway and DNS addresses.

I worked on a corporate network that included over 1000 Windows and Linux computers. The computer security department demanded that we use static IP addresses until the day that we had to change the network structure. Boy, that was almost as much fun as the Y2K fiasco!

Some of these other "comments" such as SSID and WPA2 are completely baffling at these are wireless concepts that do not apply in this case. MAC address filtering is a useful wireless feature that is of little use on a hardwired network.

Use the default router configuration. Setup all PCs to use DHCP and use static IP addresses on only those systems such as networked printers.

Only when you have some experience with the many subtle issues associated with networks, do you want to start hacking at the default setup.

on Jun 24, 2011

Some of these other "comments" such as SSID and WPA2 are completely baffling at these are wireless concepts that do not apply in this case.

Most of life baffles me, but context was provided for those comments.

on Jun 24, 2011

the_Monk
Incorrect. I only run static IP's and have never had an issue whatsoever, of course I also don't agressively service-manage (ala internet-joe's like Black Viper etc.) so "network discovery" has never been an issue for any of my systems.

Choosing STATIC or DYNAMIC IP's has absolutely nothing to do with the success or failure rate of "network discovery".........if anything it had to do with your service-managing just so you know.
You're probably correct but then that's why I qualified my statement.

"One thing I definitely found out was that if you setup your network to use static IP's there was no way, at least that I could find, that allowed you to reliably access all three members of the Workgroup."

It doesn't mean a solution doesn't exist it just means that I couldn't find one and it really wasn't for lack of trying. I essentially turned on everything that seemed to have even the most tenuous connection to the issue to no avail but once I switched back to dynamically allocated albeit reserved IP's I had no real difficulty making it work. Clearly there seems to be some advantage to dynamic IP's over static.

the_Monk
My suggestion as always is to only disable services after you've educated yourself enough about the individual service and any/all potential depedencies in any myriad of situations (which can of course become rather time-consuming).
Agreed, however you don't educated yourself by sitting back and leaving things as they are simply because you're afraid to touch something you don't understand either. My take is that if I look at something and I don't think I need it then I turn it off and sooner or later I'll either determine why it is that I do need it or prove that in fact I don't.

For example a number of Tweaking guides as well as Auslogic's Boostspeed services optimizer suggests turning off Terminal Services. I did that and the only downside that I could determine was that whenever I brought up Taskman it didn't show the username that each process was running under. To some I suppose this doesn't matter hence the guidance but to me it was sufficient to turn it back on. However if I never played with it I still would have no idea what it really does.

Yes. If you're not using any wireless devices, it's moot, however. Those settings are just to secure the wireless signal (to the extent you can).
Ah. I see. I protect myself by simply not using wireless but then I don't have a laptop and I suppose wireless is the best way to go with a laptop.

I did read something recently where a SWAT team broke into a guys house early one morning and dragged the guy away in cuffs in front of his family. It turns out the the kid next door had used his wireless access to download kiddie porn. However it took some time to prove that was the case and the guy's life was hell in the meantime as you can imagine.

I try to avoid things like that.

Only when you have some experience with the many subtle issues associated with networks, do you want to start hacking at the default setup.
Other than taking a whole lot of IT classes the best way I've found to figure things out is to take them apart and put them together again. Occasionally I bite off more than I can chew but I can usually stumble into a solution sometimes with a hint or two from someone more knowledgeable.

Isn't that pretty much what this forum is about?

the_Monk
Of course I also have 8GBs of RAM and ooodles more processing power since that XP machine so I'm not as agressive with service-management these days
It's this attitude that really kills me.

Please don't take the following personal it's just kind of a pet peeve with me.

[rant]

I've been a hardware engineer all my life and without going into a whole bunch of gory details about the kinds of design experience I've had over the last 35 years or so, suffice to say that I've seen overall hardware processing speeds literally increase a thousandfold over that time period.

Over the same amount of time what has been the *real* productivity increase of overall systems comprised of both software and hardware? In real terms I'd suggest that real productivity has perhaps doubled or perhaps tripled but I'll be extremely generous and stipulate to a ten fold overall system productivity increase. So what's the bottom line? Hardware has increased a thousandfold (MHz to GHz) and overall system improvement has increased ten times. That means that over the last thirty years software has wasted a potential 100 fold system level improvement.

So don't talk to me that hardware's so much faster so it's OK to write crap code to waste 99% of any hardware improvements.

As far as what difference the level of tweaking that I do makes the only concrete example I know of was playing GalCiv2 and being able to upgrade 17,000 ships at one time where the best anyone else could do was closer to 12 to 13,000. As to why anyone would care one way or another had to do with how the game was scored but on a cpu and memory intensive operation against folks with similar or even better hardware I could do close to 30% better than they could and the only difference in our systems was the level of tweaking.

[/rant]

So anyway thanks for all your advice. It did in fact help me to get to where I wanted to go even if it's not exactly where everyone else wanted me to go.

on Jun 25, 2011

Mumble,

Don't worry, nothing taken personally over here.    I absolutely agree with you about the exponential increase in hardware which is not even remotely being realised however in software.  I do however also know that part of my reasons for tweaking my previous machines the way I used to was because I'm actually very much OCD. 

I'm trying to get better Mumble (my wife has threatned to leave me if my OCD doesn't get better...j/k).....which is why I'm trying my damndest not to care about a few little extraneous services......hehe 

on Jun 25, 2011

My reason is simply historical.

If I had my druthers we'd still be running Windows for Workgroups 3.11. As far as I'm concerned everything since then has been pretty much downhill. If you understood autoexec.bat, config.sys, win.ini and system.ini you pretty much knew everything there was know about your PC. I pretty much knew every single file, what it did and why I needed it.

Since then it's just gotten more and more abstract for very little added benefit except for having a common video interface.

Basically I still view a PC as a my personal computer and I object to software providers that treat my machine as if the sole reason for it's existence is to run their software and they're free to install any piece of ancillary code they feel like without asking permission.

To me keeping a handle on my services is merely an extension of the concern I have about being in control of what runs on my PC and when it runs. That's why I don't allow anything to update automatically (keeping Adobe updates in check are a particular pain) and instead check for updates when I want to and only accepting those updates that I want to accept.

I know I'm fighting a losing battle but I still try to keep as much control over my machine as reasonably possible.

on Jun 25, 2011

Mumblefratz
I know I'm fighting a losing battle but I still try to keep as much control over my machine as reasonably possible.

There's a little Luddite in all of us.

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