Presuming that these computers are in the same Workgroup, and presuming that your firewall is not allowing one to read the other, check to see if the Networking support boxes are checked:
Start > Set Program Access and Defaults > Add/Remove Windows Components > Networking Services
 

Hi Sampson,
 
Thanks. The computers are in the same workgroup and the firewall is set correctly. Also, the Networking support is installed. I've received so much conflicting advice, including from Microsoft (with whom I gave up when I ceased to understand the Indian accent) that I'm at a complete loss with this!
 
Any other ideas would be most welcome...
 
Terence
 
 

Let's see what permissions you've granted your shared folder:
To examine a user's permissions on a file or folder using Xcacls
 
1.Open a command prompt. Click Start, click Run, and type cmd.
 
2.Type:Xcacls FileOrFolderPath
 
3.Examine the user's permissions and compare with the desired permissions.
 
The following is an example of the preceding Xcacls command:
 
Xcacls C:\Tools

Sorry, you may not have the xcacls support program. You can download it with all of the support tools for XP here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/detai...;displaylang=en
or you can download just xcacls alone here (pay no attention that is in the W2K section, it works): http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/reskit/tools/existing/xcacls-o.asp
 

Thank you for your help, Sampson. I'll check this out later on today and let you know what transpires.
 
Terence

Me again. I down loaded the Xcalcs programme and everything looks ok everywhere. Here's an odd thing: I connected a laptop (XP Pro) to the network and got a similar problem - the laptop could access the files on one computer but not the other (computer A); neither of them could access the laptop. I decided to create a new netork with a different name and then the Laptop *could* be accessed by both computers but still Computer A remained inaccessible. The settings appear to be identical on all three computers.
 
The problem remains the same: All access to computer A is denied.
 
I'm beginning to think I might have to do a complete reinstallation of XP :-(
 
Terence
 
 

I could be wrong here(this is outta my league), I really don't know much about networking, but can you not take ownership of all the files on the inaccessable computer, thus giving you access to it as the admin, from another computer?

Hi Relic,
 
Yes, this seemed like a good idea to me too (Networking is not really my 'bag' either) but the problem remained... Computer A is inaccessble to anything else on the Network :-(
 
Terence

Let's see if it is the firewall. Do the following:
 
Click Start, click Run, type cmd in the Open box, and then click OK.
 
Type the following command, and then press ENTER:
netsh firewall set portopening tcp 445 smb enable

Thank you Sampson - I won't be back in that particular office for a day or two now, but I'll give that a try and see what happens.
 
Thanks for all your help - have a great New Year!
 
Terence

Well, I still have problems :-(
 
I entered the: !netsh firewall set portopening tcp 445 smb enable" but it made no difference. Then I ran Xcacl again, but this time it shows that there are no permissions set, even though I have sharing enabled.
 
There's one thing that is probably relevant: This machine used to have a W2K installation which appears to still be in the partition (don't know if it runs and don't know how to get rid of it) with a Kerio Firewall. When XP was installed, the firewall was off and couldn't be turned on - a call to Microsoft resulted in me making, with their guidance, a change to the registry, which solved the problem... but I have a horrid feeling that there is something here that is not able to be resolved.
 
Any more advice would be MUCH appreciated!
 
Terence

Hey Terrence,
 
Not sure if you have solved this issue yet? Have you checked IP address schemes to make sure you are in the same subnet. They will not communicate without being in the same subnet and workgroup. Are you getting a login screen to the system you are trying to connect to? In workgroups you need users set up with the same credentials at each machine to give access to the machine's share.