Windows XP work group won't ping but arp works....

Ok, here is the situation. I have two Windows XP stations
freshly installed and firewall disabled. I have manually
assigned an internal IP scheme of 192.168.0.3 and
192.168.0.10 we will call them station1 and station2. I
have enabled the guest account and open all sharing for
both systems. What is weird is if I try to ping the
systems I get timed out every time. Although both systems
can surf the web and access other stations on the network
as other stations can access the XP stations.
After several trials and erros, several cups of coffee and
mats of hair loss I went out on a stretch....

I typed in arp -a at the command prompt of both systems
and received the same message "no names in cache" or
something darn close to that. Humm
Ok, then I typed in arp -s 192.168.0.3 "mac address
station1" and arp-s 192.168.0.10 "mac address of station2"
I did this on both systems and now they ping everytime,
they can also share files, printers..etc. All is
wonderful in the world now.

Problem is, why is this?!?!?! There has to be a way
around this. I am glad I got a work around in the mean
time but honestly. How can I get these systems to work
properly with having to create a batch file, place it in
the startup folder under "all users" so it runs everytime
the PC is booted??

Any help with this I cannot thank you enough!!!!!!!


Rick

Just a wild guess, but what is the subnet mask on both machines?

--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.


"RickC" wrote in message
...
Ok, here is the situation. I have two Windows XP stations
freshly installed and firewall disabled. I have manually
assigned an internal IP scheme of 192.168.0.3 and
192.168.0.10 we will call them station1 and station2. I
have enabled the guest account and open all sharing for
both systems. What is weird is if I try to ping the
systems I get timed out every time. Although both systems
can surf the web and access other stations on the network
as other stations can access the XP stations.
After several trials and erros, several cups of coffee and
mats of hair loss I went out on a stretch....

I typed in arp -a at the command prompt of both systems
and received the same message "no names in cache" or
something darn close to that. Humm
Ok, then I typed in arp -s 192.168.0.3 "mac address
station1" and arp-s 192.168.0.10 "mac address of station2"
I did this on both systems and now they ping everytime,
they can also share files, printers..etc. All is
wonderful in the world now.

Problem is, why is this?!?!?! There has to be a way
around this. I am glad I got a work around in the mean
time but honestly. How can I get these systems to work
properly with having to create a batch file, place it in
the startup folder under "all users" so it runs everytime
the PC is booted??

Any help with this I cannot thank you enough!!!!!!!


Rick

255.255.255.0 Your basic class C subnet. I have used
this combination on internal workgroups several times
without any problems....

-----Original Message-----
Just a wild guess, but what is the subnet mask on both
machines?

--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and
confers no rights.


"RickC" wrote in message
...
Ok, here is the situation. I have two Windows XP
stations
freshly installed and firewall disabled. I have
manually
assigned an internal IP scheme of 192.168.0.3 and
192.168.0.10 we will call them station1 and station2. I
have enabled the guest account and open all sharing for
both systems. What is weird is if I try to ping the
systems I get timed out every time. Although both
systems
can surf the web and access other stations on the
network
as other stations can access the XP stations.
After several trials and erros, several cups of coffee
and
mats of hair loss I went out on a stretch....

I typed in arp -a at the command prompt of both systems
and received the same message "no names in cache" or
something darn close to that. Humm
Ok, then I typed in arp -s 192.168.0.3 "mac address
station1" and arp-s 192.168.0.10 "mac address of
station2"
I did this on both systems and now they ping everytime,
they can also share files, printers..etc. All is
wonderful in the world now.

Problem is, why is this?!?!?! There has to be a way
around this. I am glad I got a work around in the mean
time but honestly. How can I get these systems to work
properly with having to create a batch file, place it in
the startup folder under "all users" so it runs
everytime
the PC is booted??

Any help with this I cannot thank you enough!!!!!!!


Rick



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