[Penguin6]

My network is set up through a netgear wireless router. My winxp machine is hooked up via ethernet and my iBook is through airport. I was always able to access files from either machine from any one and vice versa.

However recently my iBook has lost the ability to run files from my winxp machine. However, wireless internet works fine. Whenever I try to connect, it shows the login screen, then it says the original alias cannot be found. I can't delete it because i do not have sufficient privledges. On my winxp machine however, i CAN view my iBook and go through its files and stuff.

Any suggestions on how to fix this? I searched online a lot about this and this seems to be a common problem but no solutions were presented.

Thanks.

[billybobsky]

What did you do on your iBook or windows machine recently that might have caused this?

I suspect that you may need to delete the alias through terminal or through NetInfo Manager authentication, however, I would proceed with caution as you can royally fuck things up that way...

[Penguin6]

i dont think i did anything, on either machine. my little brother uses the winxp machine and has a bunch of adware and stuff but it still works fine.

concerning my ibook, the only thing i did was restart my ibook after 2 weeks or so of uptime. haha

[Penguin6]

theres an option "fix alias" too but i have no idea where to redirect it.

[billybobsky]

Can you see the winxp machine on the network?

[Penguin6]

from the ibook. i see the winxp machine but i cannot access it, hence the broken alias. however from winxp machine, i can see my ibook and access ibook files. (noproblems from winxp machine)

[billybobsky]

So the broken alias is in the network...

Hmm...

Are your ip addresses assigned?

Have you tried restarting both computers?

[Penguin6]

yes. i think it is just a problem with the ibook.

[billybobsky]

If you click on the alias and go to get info, what does it say?

[billybobsky]

Ok... I was playing around with the network in my lab and I don't understand a few things...

1) Why don't you have sufficient permissions to delete the alias?

2) It actually seems that your WinXP machine is blocking the connection from the laptop and not the other way around... the problem is with the WinXP machine...

The reason why I think that this is what is going on is that the Alias you are refering to is autopopulated by the laptop finding the computers on the network... ie. your laptop sees the machine perfectly fine but only after it attempts to logon does the connection get refused...

Do you have a firewall running on the WinXP machine?

[Penguin6]

no i have no firewall. funny thing is that a week before i was able to access my winxp machine from my ibook and wirelessly print too. the printer is attached to my winxp machine. but suddenly i cant do any of these things.

a lot of people seem to have this problem too.
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=43408

i have EXACTLY the same problem as this guy. however this seemed to be an early problem for tiger 10.4.0, and was fixed in later editions.
I have 10.4.3, and things were working fine until out of nowhere.
the only system changes i probably did during this time was download a few game demos.

[billybobsky]

If you are certain you don't have a firewall running on the PC (even the winxp software firewall... you can see if it is on by going to the security center control panel), then I am out of guesses...

Have you tried calling apple?

[billybobsky]

Oh... You might get more help by PMing a moderator to get your thread title changed... as is, it is somewhat non-descript...

[Penguin6]

yeah. thanks for trying to help tho. i appreciate it.