Home Network

aem said:

Those IPs look as good as they can be, and are sufficient for the machines to ping one another (you only need the IP, subnet and gateway). You only need to worry about DNS and the others if you want to connect to the internet.

Now lets figure out why one cannot ping the other. This is purely networking, and firewall is part of it.

I would see if i can pick out a difference in settings between the two PCs. Try it.

Btw, have you tried assiging static IPs to them?

No, I have dynamic settings for both. I'm under the impression that I would have to get static IPs assigned by the ISP...true?

I have no idea of what you mean by "pick out a difference in settings between the two PCs". I would need you to clarify to do so.

You should be doing this with the regular user accounts that already have admin privliges. I don't even know if Homegroups works the same with the built in Admin account or not.
The fact that you can't ping the other machine is very strange.

I would reset the router, static IP's should not be needed, DHCP should be working fine. You can assign static IP's manually in the router control panel but I don't see how that would help unless there is something very wrong with the router.

aem said:

No need to talk about accounts just yet man, you got a ping issue. Have you tried using static ip for your tcp/ipv4?

I answered this question in post #38, and followed it with a question of my own.

I exited the firewall on both rigs (Outpost) and I was able to ping the secondary from the primary, but still couldn't ping the primary from the secondary. It appears that there is at least two aspects to this issue.

aem said:

He's already got good DHCP details but it aint working, so assigning static IP to the problematic machine for testing would be a goer.

You should have to change the router's settings as it is fine (for now).

Perhaps, but it isn't going anywhere, unless you answer my question regarding assigning static IPs.

Firewall, hmm you may need to uninstall that. Obviously a firewall would cause all problems listed so far. Static IP's won't matter but the firewall does. All A/V's and firewalls are the scourge of Homegroup networking.

A/V's cause problems so often I can't keep track of which ones are the worst. It's always best to set up your network and make sure it's working then install the A/V and check to see that the network is still up and running.

AVG, and ZoneAlarm are the two biggest problems for Homegroups but most any thing with a firewall will cause problems unless you set up exceptions in the firewall accordingly.

I just realized that I made a mistake when I last pinged the primary from the secondary, so I repeated the test with the firewall disabled, and it then pinged okay, so obviously, the obstacle is Outpost. Unless someone here knows the firewall well enough to help me tweak it for networking, I will have to post on the Outpost Forum for help. Generally, while their support is good, it is also quite slow, so I hope someone here knows the firewall. I do not want to have to use the Windows firewall.

seekermeister said:

I just realized that I made a mistake when I last pinged the primary from the secondary, so I repeated the test with the firewall disabled, and it then pinged okay, so obviously, the obstacle is Outpost. Unless someone here knows the firewall well enough to help me tweak it for networking, I will have to post on the Outpost Forum for help. Generally, while their support is good, it is also quite slow, so I hope someone here knows the firewall. I do not want to have to use the Windows firewall.

At this point if you want Homegroups to work you will need to uninstall that firewall. I had no idea you were using one, if I did it would have been the first thing to go.

I have zero problems with Windows firewall. You can always try to install outpost again and create the exceptions after you have Homegroups up and running.