The first thing that I would check is to see if the netmask is the same if I was configuring the ip address manually (as someone mentioned earlier). A program that could help you out alot is realvnc. Install the server on bothmachines and then hover the mouse over the icon in the toolbar. this will give you the ip address of the machine. This program can help if your machines are not all close together (ex: seperate rooms,etc.) You can just rnc into the machine by typing in its computer name & password, and if the machine is recognized to the OS's network. Besides it is free.
I have machines with the same OS's set-up in my own network. The XP machine is set as 192.168.0.1 / 255.255.255.0 then it sends to the network what ip addresses are available from that block. The W2k machine just connects to the network and through RNC I can see that the ip address of that machine changes from 127.0.0.1 to 192.168.0.x . Depending on the number of machines in the network, and within about a minute. I can see all machines connected to the network in My Network Places on all machines in the network. One suggestion is to check out a security/firewall website to make sure your main connection machine is secure on all fronts. XP's built-in firewall is good for WAN connections if you have nothing else, and have closed it default open ports. Check out GRC or PC Flank for more security programs/tests. I hope that this has been helpfull.
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Red Baron
