I hit a dead end setting up my home network

I have a desktop that's connected to a wrt54g (ver. 2) router and a laptop with a wireless card. I have no troubles getting internet on the laptop. Both computers have XP with sp2.

My problem is that I've done everything imaginable to get the two computers communicating with each other but I've only been able to do it once and I have no idea why it worked that once.

Right now the desktop can see the laptop but If I try to access the laptop i get a message that says:

"laptop os not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resources. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions." The network path was not found

Both machines have xp pro and the desktop has a password on the user account.

Sorry, I lost track of this thread. This wonderful board gives no indication of which threads you have posted in...

XP Pro is intended for large enterprise networks with the resulting hyper concern over user account security. As a result, it tends to be significantly fussier and a bigger PITA to get simple network sharing working properly.

First, something real basic. I apologize if you have already done all of this; I'm just making no assumptions here.

1)If you haven't, run the home network setup wizard on both machines so that both machines are members of the same workgroup.

2) Once that is done, go to My Network Places on each machine and make sure each machine can "see" the other machine.

3) Once that works, then enable sharing on the folders you want to share.

4) Now go back to My Network Places on each machine and verify you can "see" the shared folders on the other machine.

If you have done 1) and either 2) or 4) give you the same "call your admin" error message, try removing all passwords from all acounts and try again.

Let me know how this works out.

The problem with that error message is it is the generic message that XP Pro gives when it has just about any problem accessing a network resource.

First things first, though. You need to get the two computers reliably connecting into the same workgroup. Are you sure your workgroup name is EXACTLY the same? Go to My Computer-Properties on each machine and click the Compute Name tab. Make sure the workgroup each computer thinks it is a member of is exactly the same.

If it is, try disabling and reenabling the network connection (using control panel). If you can't get them reliably connecting as members of the same workgroup, you'll not get very far with folder sharing.

I hope this helps you, as it helped me out with a similar problem. It took awhile, but I did some comparing with a machine where I could gain network access I found the following and made one change under security options. It is a bit of a journy to get there but here it is.

Control Panel
Administrative Tools
Local Security Policy
+ Local Policies
+ Security Options

Network Access: Do not allow anonymous enumeration of SAM account, and shares. (Enabled) - It Should Be Disabled.