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General discussion

Communication between my computers

Aug 14, 2005 5:12AM PDT

Hello,

In the last couple of days I have been getting the following message when trying to connect from my G4 to my Desktop PC: ''The alias ''XXX'' could not be opened, because the original item cannot be found''. Then it gives me three options: ''Delete Alias'', Fix Alias'' and ''OK''. When I press ''Fix'' I just get the window that says ''Choose the item that you want alias ''XXX'' to open. Whatever I choose, nothing happens.

The situation is no better when I try to connect from my laptop to my desktop PC. When I open ''View workgroup computers'' all three computers all listed there. Yet when I try to connect I get a warning saying ''\\XXX is not accessible''. On the other hand, from that problematic desktop I can with no problems access both my laptop and my Mac. I thought that my Zone Alarm was blocking the access, but even with Zone Alarm off I still have the same problem.

Any ides what the problem might be?

Thanks a lot!

Cheers,
Exp.

Desktop OS: XP Pro SP2
Laptop OS: XP Pro SP2
Mac OS: OS X Tiger

Discussion is locked

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Firewall
Aug 14, 2005 6:41AM PDT

I recently had this problem and after much head scratching it turned out to be the Firewall on the PC. In my case, ZoneAlarm. I had recently changed routers, from D-Link to Linksys, and the new one uses a different set of IP addresses. ZA was configured to allow addresses from the D-Link machine.
Reconfigured ZA and all is fine now.
Check that the XP Firewall is not turned on too

P

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Re:
Aug 14, 2005 7:50AM PDT

But can this be the case if ZA is off?

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probably not
Aug 14, 2005 9:17AM PDT

Is the XP firewall on?
From your description of the the problem and the fact that two different machines with different OS's cannot access the one PC, I would point my finger at that PC.
Have you installed anything lately, done M$ updates, etc?

P

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Re:
Aug 14, 2005 7:27PM PDT

The XP firewall is off. I too believe it's the PC. Besides Windows updates, I have not installed anything that I think would be causing all this.
As I mentioned, I have a firewall installed on my Desktop PC (zone alarm), to which I have assigned an IP range so it would allow access to both computers. But I also have the same firewall on my laptop PC (to which I can connect just fine), and they are both configured the same way, to allow access to the other two computers.

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There is no 'off' or disable in Zonealarm.
Aug 14, 2005 9:28AM PDT

It's an item I've learned about by testing. Ask zonelabs why but to disable, I uninstall it.

Bob

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I haven't tried this yet but maybe it will help you
Aug 20, 2005 1:30PM PDT