LAN Vista & XP Help!

[jenkins]

$10 reward if you can fix this, I'm getting desperate.
Reposted from Networking Sub-Forum:
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Ok. It's 2AM and I'm out of ideas, and running out of steam, so forgive me if i seem incoherent, or miss some crucial piece of info.

I've got two computers in my house. Computer A is Vista 64 Ultimate (sp1, rc1), EVGA 680i dual gigabit. Computer B is XP Pro Sp2, intel d965wh single gigabit.

For the past few days, i have been struggling to get the two computers to talk to each other. initially, I could not ping either computer - i set them to the same workgroup and helped this issue. Assigning each computer a static ip, xxx.xxx.xxx.11 & xxx.xxx.xxx.12 respectively, fixed this issue entirely. I also removed the DHCP function of my router (greyfox 8 port) on the LAN side of things.

So now that the computers were talking, I tried to play a LAN game between the two. (The main game in question is starfleet command, but this issue exists with mechwarrior 4, and splinter cell chaos theory as well, ie every game I have tried.) If computer A (vista) hosted, computer B could not see it. If computer B hosted, the vista machine could see, but timed out everytime it tried to connect. I disabled both firewalls, and reset computer B's Network card and it allowed the two computers to connect and play. The Vista machine could still not host, but I didn't worry about it. I closed out the game, tried some of the others, they all worked.

Now, today is a different story. Cut both systems on to play a quick game, and 7 hours later I'm posting here. computer B, can ping vista, but vista cannot ping xp. After trying several things, I threw up my hands in frustration and downloaded SP1 for vista. It did not help this issue, but it did speed up general connectivity. I removed and reinstalled the Network Driver on computer B, xp, and reset the workgroup. I can now ping both ways, and share files and folders. However, If i host a game with computer A, vista, xp can still not see it. Furthermore, Vista can see but not connect to any xp games.

I am at my wits end.

Both systems have the latest drivers
I have reset the firewalls on both systems
both have a static ip
i can ping
i can access files
as far as i know, permissions are wide open
I downloaded LLDP (To show the network map, but this doesn't seem to work)
route print shows everything normal on both systems, on computer a, it shows 1 persistent route which is my gateway.


If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read my dissertation.

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Oh, i forgot to mention. I got the game to work once today. It was after some monkeying with the firewalls, i didn't really change anything, just cut them on, and then cut them off. we got into the game, then the game was showing some errors so we closed it and went back in, and it refused to connect. after that, i tried netsh firewall reset. No dice.

Thanks.
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I got one game to work again today. It seems like there is almost something clamping down as soon as i get one succesful game. Either a firewall, or something of that nature. Perhaps this is more a question for the software section.

Both computers are using AVG 7.5 Free Edition, and both are using the built in windows firewall. That's it.

I'm posting this in the software forum as well. If this is illegal, please move one or the other.

Thanks.

p.s. ($10 to whoever fixes this.)

 

[Lucio]

You do realise that sometimes turning "off" a firewall can still leave restrictions in place.

My suggestion is to get a proper firewall program and turn Windows Firewall off (Comdo Firewall Pro works on Vista 64bit, even if it is a bit verbose), more importantly it's free.

If you don't want to do that, make sure Windows Firewall is configured properly! You'll need to configure exceptions based on the ports used by the individual programs, Sometimes, it'll prompt you and you can just click "Unblock this application", other times you have to do it manually. It's fairly straight forward, go to Control Panel ->Windows Firewall -> Exceptions, then you should be able to see how to open specific ports

 

[jenkins]

Sorry, I should have been clearer - I did both cut off windows firewall, and enable it with exceptions.

I'll have to check out Comdo. It really does seem like a firewall thing, something is closing my connection I think.

 

[metril]

You are using a router correct? Edit: Yes I see you are using one.

If so, could you post back what router you are using? Edit: Okay I just saw your router.


You might need to do some port forwarding in your router. Also, make sure that each for each game, each PC is configured to use a different port for incoming and outgoing traffic. The ports have to be different for incoming and outgoing only between the PCs. Next, go to your router's configuration page and look for something called Port Forwarding. You will have to forward the ports set in each game for each PC to that PC's ip address. You need to do this for both PCs. Make sure each PC doesn't have the same ports set for forwarding.

I don't have a Greyfox router. If you are having trouble still, please post a screenshot of the Port Forwarding page of your router. I will be glad to try again. The picture will allow me to tell you exactly what needs to go where.

P.S. - I don't want the reward.

 

[LstBrunnenG]

Try disabling IPv6 on the Vista machine for now.

Re: the guy above me: port forwarding is generally only useful for talking to another computer on the WAN, not on your LAN.

 

[jenkins]

Thank you both for your help.

I have disabled IPv6 on the Vista machine on the network adaptor i use for the LAN. For the WAN it is still on.

As far as the router goes, I have bypassed it completely. I borrowed a coupler from a friend and I have now basically created a gigantic crossover cable, so the router can no longer be an issue.

Thanks.