Network Map

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  1. Posts : 135
    Windows 7 Ultimate 64
       #1

    Network Map


    This may be more of a curiosity question than a problem, since everything seems to be working OK. But I'm puzzled by it, so I'll ask.

    I have a network with two computers--one a Dell With Windows 7 Ultimate 64, and the other a Gateway with Windows XP Home SP3. If I go to the Network and Sharing Center, it shows my Dell computer, my Connection, a Home Network, and the Internet. If I then click on the link in the upper right of the box, labeled "See full map," I get what confuses me a bit.

    It shows across the top, (after a brief delay with a message that says Windows is creating the network map), on the left, Dell, in the center, WNDR330 (my wireless router) and the Internet. That all seems fine to me. But at the bottom right corner of the screen is a line that says "The following Discovered Device(s) Cannot be placed on the map." It also has a link that says "Click here to see all other devices." Under that is the Gateway computer.

    If I click the Gateway Icon, I get a message that says "Windows cannot access \\Gateway. Check the spelling of the name. There might be a problem with your network. To try to identify and resolve network problems, click Diagnose." There is also a clickable item for DETAILS. If I click the DETAILS item, I get "Error Code 0x80070035 The Network Path was not found." If I click the Diagnose button, it runs through a series of tests, and finishes with (sorry I didn't write this down verbatum), but the gist of it is, Everything appears to be configured correctly, but GATEWAY could not be accssed.

    Now, for the odd part. BEFORE doing all of this, I could access the Gateway from the Dell (using Windows Explorer,) under Network or Network Locations respectively. After running the DIAGNOSE, I could not access EITHER machine from the other. However, once I rebooted the Gateway, I could then access each computer from the other.

    Clearly, there is something here that isn't quite how it should be. But it doesn't seem to affect access from Windows Explorer, but DOES impact on the ability of Windows to create the network map. And something in the Diagnose procedure, APPEARS to mess up access until at least one of the systems is rebooted.

    Any ideas on what is happening here?
    Last edited by RP McIntosh; 29 Apr 2010 at 14:09. Reason: Insert missing parentheses
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 2,736
    ...
       #2

    RP McIntosh said:
    This may be more of a curiosity question than a problem, since everything seems to be working OK. But I'm puzzled by it, so I'll ask.

    I have a network with two computers--one a Dell With Windows 7 Ultimate 64, and the other a Gateway with Windows XP Home SP3. If I go to the Network and Sharing Center, it shows my Dell computer, my Connection, a Home Network, and the Internet. If I then click on the link in the upper right of the box, labeled "See full map," I get what confuses me a bit.

    It shows across the top, (after a brief delay with a message that says Windows is creating the network map), on the left, Dell, in the center, WNDR330 (my wireless router) and the Internet. That all seems fine to me. But at the bottom right corner of the screen is a line that says "The following Discovered Device(s) Cannot be placed on the map." It also has a link that says "Click here to see all other devices." Under that is the Gateway computer.

    If I click the Gateway Icon, I get a message that says "Windows cannot access \\Gateway. Check the spelling of the name. There might be a problem with your network. To try to identify and resolve network problems, click Diagnose." There is also a clickable item for DETAILS. If I click the DETAILS item, I get "Error Code 0x80070035 The Network Path was not found." If I click the Diagnose button, it runs through a series of tests, and finishes with (sorry I didn't write this down verbatum), but the gist of it is, Everything appears to be configured correctly, but GATEWAY could not be accssed.

    Now, for the odd part. BEFORE doing all of this, I could access the Gateway from the Dell (using Windows Explorer,) under Network or Network Locations respectively. After running the DIAGNOSE, I could not access EITHER machine from the other. However, once I rebooted the Gateway, I could then access each computer from the other.

    Clearly, there is something here that isn't quite how it should be. But it doesn't seem to affect access from Windows Explorer, but DOES impact on the ability of Windows to create the network map. And something in the Diagnose procedure, APPEARS to mess up access until at least one of the systems is rebooted.

    Any ideas on what is happening here?
    Hello RP McIntosh;

    You have supplied lots of info; thanks for that. However the one bit of info not clear is if you are using the Windows 7 HomeGroup network or the older Windows Workgroup network with your computers.

    To network XP computers you must use Workgroup, as old computers are not compatible with the Windows 7 HomeGroup features?

    Cheers!
    Robert
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 135
    Windows 7 Ultimate 64
    Thread Starter
       #3

    iseeuu said:
    RP McIntosh said:
    This may be more of a curiosity question than a problem, since everything seems to be working OK. But I'm puzzled by it, so I'll ask.

    I have a network with two computers--one a Dell With Windows 7 Ultimate 64, and the other a Gateway with Windows XP Home SP3. If I go to the Network and Sharing Center, it shows my Dell computer, my Connection, a Home Network, and the Internet. If I then click on the link in the upper right of the box, labeled "See full map," I get what confuses me a bit.

    It shows across the top, (after a brief delay with a message that says Windows is creating the network map), on the left, Dell, in the center, WNDR330 (my wireless router) and the Internet. That all seems fine to me. But at the bottom right corner of the screen is a line that says "The following Discovered Device(s) Cannot be placed on the map." It also has a link that says "Click here to see all other devices." Under that is the Gateway computer.

    If I click the Gateway Icon, I get a message that says "Windows cannot access \\Gateway. Check the spelling of the name. There might be a problem with your network. To try to identify and resolve network problems, click Diagnose." There is also a clickable item for DETAILS. If I click the DETAILS item, I get "Error Code 0x80070035 The Network Path was not found." If I click the Diagnose button, it runs through a series of tests, and finishes with (sorry I didn't write this down verbatum), but the gist of it is, Everything appears to be configured correctly, but GATEWAY could not be accssed.

    Now, for the odd part. BEFORE doing all of this, I could access the Gateway from the Dell (using Windows Explorer,) under Network or Network Locations respectively. After running the DIAGNOSE, I could not access EITHER machine from the other. However, once I rebooted the Gateway, I could then access each computer from the other.

    Clearly, there is something here that isn't quite how it should be. But it doesn't seem to affect access from Windows Explorer, but DOES impact on the ability of Windows to create the network map. And something in the Diagnose procedure, APPEARS to mess up access until at least one of the systems is rebooted.

    Any ideas on what is happening here?
    Hello RP McIntosh;

    You have supplied lots of info; thanks for that. However the one bit of info not clear is if you are using the Windows 7 HomeGroup network or the older Windows Workgroup network with your computers.

    To network XP computers you must use Workgroup, as old computers are not compatible with the Windows 7 HomeGroup features?

    Cheers!
    Robert
    Robert--

    Thaks for the reply. And I should have mentioned that before I began setting this all up, I had already read that I should NOT try to use the Homegroup features of Winows 7 if I had non-Windows 7 computers on the network. So, the answer is, I am NOT using the HomeGroup. Both my computers are set to WORKGROUP. And as long as I stay away from the Network Map feature (at least, so far), I can access the folders I have set to share by using the Network and Network Locations on either computer. It has been a challenging process to get this all to work, so something I did (or failed to do) along the way may be to blame. Will provide any additional info that may be helpful to you. Thanks again for offering to assist.
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 2,736
    ...
       #4

    RP McIntosh said:
    Thaks for the reply. And I should have mentioned that before I began setting this all up, I had already read that I should NOT try to use the Homegroup features of Winows 7 if I had non-Windows 7 computers on the network. So, the answer is, I am NOT using the HomeGroup. Both my computers are set to WORKGROUP. And as long as I stay away from the Network Map feature (at least, so far), I can access the folders I have set to share by using the Network and Network Locations on either computer. It has been a challenging process to get this all to work, so something I did (or failed to do) along the way may be to blame. Will provide any additional info that may be helpful to you. Thanks again for offering to assist.
    It seems to me that the behavior for your network map is normal. Here is mine:

    Network Map-network_map_01.png

    Note the network map is only compatible with my Windows 7 computers, not XP or Ubuntu.

    I also use the "Home Network Location" for my home network and these "Advanced" settings:

    Network Map-advanced_sharing_01.jpg
    Network Map-advanced_sharing_02.jpg

    It has also been reported that IPV6 creates problems, so you may need to disable it and all other HomeGroup settings.

    I also find it easier to have identical user accounts on each computer. I only need to enter the user's password the first time to share the folders I have manually created and set to share.

    How do you have your sharing setup?

    Cheers!
    Robert
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 135
    Windows 7 Ultimate 64
    Thread Starter
       #5

    iseeuu said:
    RP McIntosh said:
    Thaks for the reply. And I should have mentioned that before I began setting this all up, I had already read that I should NOT try to use the Homegroup features of Winows 7 if I had non-Windows 7 computers on the network. So, the answer is, I am NOT using the HomeGroup. Both my computers are set to WORKGROUP. And as long as I stay away from the Network Map feature (at least, so far), I can access the folders I have set to share by using the Network and Network Locations on either computer. It has been a challenging process to get this all to work, so something I did (or failed to do) along the way may be to blame. Will provide any additional info that may be helpful to you. Thanks again for offering to assist.
    It seems to me that the behavior for your network map is normal. Here is mine:

    Network Map-network_map_01.png

    Note the network map is only compatible with my Windows 7 computers, not XP or Ubuntu.

    I also use the "Home Network Location" for my home network and these "Advanced" settings:

    Network Map-advanced_sharing_01.jpg
    Network Map-advanced_sharing_02.jpg

    It has also been reported that IPV6 creates problems, so you may need to disable it and all other HomeGroup settings.

    I also find it easier to have identical user accounts on each computer. I only need to enter the user's password the first time to share the folders I have manually created and set to share.

    How do you have your sharing setup?

    Cheers!
    Robert
    Robert--

    Well, it's nice to know that I'm not alone, and that perhaps, it is just a quirk of having a mixed OS network. Frankly, at least so far, there is no down side to it. I just didn't want to have something wrong that would give me problems later.

    As for how I have my sharing set up, I'm still working on that. I have a thread posted elsewhere in regard to sharing drives (i. e. the root folder on a drive) rather than individual folders. There are warnings about that, but what I'm looking for is essentially to be able to access any thing on either machine FROM either machine. In addition, because I have many drives on both machines, sharing folders only is awkward for me, because unless I give each a unique name (possible, of course, but tedious), I lose track of which drive they are on. I am the only person who uses either computer, and there are only the two computers on the network. So I'm not sure what extra risk I would be adding by sharing drives in that scenario. I also don't have multiple user accounts or user passwords on either machine. I realize that if someone were to break into the house and steal the computers, they could get to everything I have. But I don't immediately see how sharing the data makes that any worse--if NOTHING were shared, and they stole both computers, they could get everything anyway. But I'm moving slowly just in case there is some risk that I haven't thought of. So far, all I've done is get the printers working (they are both on the Win 7 machine), and share a couple of drives on each machine just to figure out how to do it (with some very good help from the folks here.) So, now I think I pretty much know HOW, and am at this point waiting for feedback to determine to what degree I want to do it. The two big things were to share the internet connection, and the printers. And that part is working. I'm in less of a rush to come to a final conclusion on sharing drives and folders.

    But your thoughts and suggestions would be welcome.

    By the way, what is IPV6 and how do I disable it?
    Last edited by RP McIntosh; 29 Apr 2010 at 20:53. Reason: Forgot a question
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 2,736
    ...
       #6

    RP McIntosh said:
    I'm in less of a rush to come to a final conclusion on sharing drives and folders.

    But your thoughts and suggestions would be welcome.

    By the way, what is IPV6 and how do I disable it?
    Well ... since you asked ... in my humble opinion, not having multiple user accounts and passwords is just foolish. User accounts get corrupted, if you only have one account you loose all access to your hard drive's data. It is just as foolish as not backing up your OS and irreplaceable data. For safety, you should have at least one "Admin" user account and one "Limited User" account for every day use. It is not so much so someone doesn't physically compromise your equipment, but if the worst does happen and you pickup a virus or trojan, you limit the damage. It gives you something to fall back on and avoids heartache.

    If you are using secondary hard drives to share data between computers, you only need to create one folder on the hard drive to share, everything you put in the shared folder is available to the other computer.

    If you want complete access to another computer on your network, I suggest looking at something like UltraVNC. I use it without any security on my simple home network to access my Ubuntu and XP computers from my Windows 7.

    Here is a MS link to show you how to disable IPV6 in your Windows 7 computer:
    How to disable certain Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) components in Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008

    Type 0xffffffff to disable all IPv6 components.

    IPv4 is the current Internet Protocol version 4. It uses the address scheme: XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX for Internet addresses. The WWW is quickly using up all available addresses. IPv6 will use XXXX:XXX:XXXX::XXXX:XXX:XXXX and will supply new addresses for years to come. Mixing the two will be necessary for many years, but when you have older computers in your home network you can do without IPv6. You can Google IPv6 and learn much more.

    Hope this is helpful.
      My Computer


  7. Posts : 135
    Windows 7 Ultimate 64
    Thread Starter
       #7

    iseeuu said:
    RP McIntosh said:
    I'm in less of a rush to come to a final conclusion on sharing drives and folders.

    But your thoughts and suggestions would be welcome.

    By the way, what is IPV6 and how do I disable it?
    Well ... since you asked ... in my humble opinion, not having multiple user accounts and passwords is just foolish. User accounts get corrupted, if you only have one account you loose all access to your hard drive's data. It is just as foolish as not backing up your OS and irreplaceable data. For safety, you should have at least one "Admin" user account and one "Limited User" account for every day use. It is not so much so someone doesn't physically compromise your equipment, but if the worst does happen and you pickup a virus or trojan, you limit the damage. It gives you something to fall back on and avoids heartache.

    If you are using secondary hard drives to share data between computers, you only need to create one folder on the hard drive to share, everything you put in the shared folder is available to the other computer.

    If you want complete access to another computer on your network, I suggest looking at something like UltraVNC. I use it without any security on my simple home network to access my Ubuntu and XP computers from my Windows 7.

    Here is a MS link to show you how to disable IPV6 in your Windows 7 computer:
    How to disable certain Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) components in Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008

    Type 0xffffffff to disable all IPv6 components.

    IPv4 is the current Internet Protocol version 4. It uses the address scheme: XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX for Internet addresses. The WWW is quickly using up all available addresses. IPv6 will use XXXX:XXX:XXXX::XXXX:XXX:XXXX and will supply new addresses for years to come. Mixing the two will be necessary for many years, but when you have older computers in your home network you can do without IPv6. You can Google IPv6 and learn much more.

    Hope this is helpful.
    I appreciate the information on IPv6. I'll do some more reading on it.

    On the issue of users and passwords, we obviously have different approaches. I fully understand that multiple users are a desireable feature, if one actually has multiple users. I do not. No one uses my computers but me. And it seems to me that in that situation, multiple users creates an unnecessary level of complexity. I do take actions to make emergency recovery possible, including a comprehensive backup regimen, and an aggressive disk imaging schedule. And I have, in the past, used both to recover from a problem. So far, that approach has worked fairly well for me.

    I certainly have no problem with folks who take a different approach to security. And I would agree that where multiple people use a computer, or even have access to it, both security and privacy would warrant a different approach. But my real question is, that given the baseline that I am using, is there any INCREASED risk, over and above that which exists with the user/password regimen, by sharing a disk, rather than the individual folders on a disk?

    I understand what you are saying about putting everything in a single folder on a drive. But I'm missing how that folder would be any more secure than the drive itself, not to mention the fact that it would require not only moving the entire contents of the existing drive to that single subfolder, but also (if there were any applications on the drive), reinstalling them, or painfully and manually updating all of the paths used by the application. That is, for example, instead of a file being at D:\WORK\WORK99, it would end up at D:\SHARED\WORK\WORK99. I'm having trouble undrstanding how the D:\SHARED folder would be less risky than simply the D:\ folder.
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 8,870
    Windows 7 Ult, Windows 8.1 Pro,
       #8

    For the XPsp3 machine to show up on the network map you need this hotfix.
    Network Map in Windows Vista does not display computers that are running Windows XP
      My Computer


  9. Posts : 2,736
    ...
       #9

    RP McIntosh said:
    But I'm missing how that folder would be any more secure than the drive itself, not to mention the fact that it would require not only moving the entire contents of the existing drive to that single subfolder, but also (if there were any applications on the drive), reinstalling them, or painfully and manually updating all of the paths used by the application.
    Many years ago, when I bought my first replacement hard drive (425 MB), I was intent on maximizing usage with smaller partitions, moving programs to other drives, separating data by storing it on external media. Actually, it consumed a lot of time and was quite inconvenient. Ever since hard drives passed 100 GB, I find it most convenient to just put all of Windows and its programs in the default C:, and store files and data I want preserved on an external drive. This convenience saves me time and energy.

    Evidently, your requirements for how you need to use your computer are different. That I do not understand the reason for those requirements is not important, nor is it intended to say what you do is wrong.

    I do think our topic could be divided up three ways: 1) the utility of file sharing between computers, 2) the security of a "home network", and 3) basic "computer security".

    1) Like any file cabinet, it is easier to find things when stored in folders in numeric or alphabetic order. A hard drive is no different. Dividing up your data in to categories of sub folders may take longer to setup, but is easier to use afterwards, whether sharing on a network or not.

    2) A "home network", connecting two or more computers together to share files, presents almost no security risk, as long as you do not setup remote access to your "home network" from the Internet. There is no increase or decrease of risk if you share folders on a hard drive, or just share the root of the drive and everything inside.

    3) The risk to the security of a computer comes almost 100% from the connection to the Internet. (You can infect your computer by installing infected software from storage media as well.) Do you close and lock the doors to your home at night before you go to bed? What is keeping a criminal on the outside of that door? A small piece of brass held by a thin striker plate, with two screws into a wooden frame? One good push from the shoulder of a determined person would shatter the door frame into splinters. But you still close and lock your doors? If you left the doors open, a criminal would have complete access to your home. Basic computer security, limited user account, password protection, limited sharing to folders, is like closing and locking your doors. Accessing the Internet from an Admin account, no password protection, and unlimited sharing between computers on your home network is like leaving your doors open, allowing total access to your system if it is compromised.

    Of course the choice is yours, depending on your needs. But why should you insist on learning through bad experiences when you could learn from those who have already experienced the bad and learned how to minimize the damage if their computers are compromised? There are dozens of computer gurus, members of this forum, who have amassed 20 to 30 years of experience with computers in general, and, more specifically, keeping safe in a risky WWW. We are happy to offer advice and suggestions to all who ask, without criticism, and to help fix things when they get broken.

    Cheers!
    Robert
    Last edited by iseeuu; 30 Apr 2010 at 15:26.
      My Computer


  10. Posts : 135
    Windows 7 Ultimate 64
    Thread Starter
       #10

    chev65 said:
    For the XPsp3 machine to show up on the network map you need this hotfix.
    Network Map in Windows Vista does not display computers that are running Windows XP

    Well, I looked at the link, but was told it was for Windows Vista, and I should look at Windows 7. So I did. And after a good bit of searching, I found an article here

    Why are computers missing from the network map?

    that told me how to activate te Link Layer Topology stuff. When I went to do that, the items they told me to check were already checked. So guess that must not be what is causing the odd behavior.
      My Computer


 
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