Lost my Network mapping somehow

I have been fighting with my computer for a while now, so hopefully someone can help me out. I have two laptops and a desktop. The desktop is running Windows XP and the two laptops are running Vista. I have all three on the same network and there is no problem there. I recently had my laptop at a local school and connected to the network there (not sure it is relevant, but I thought I would throw that in there). After I got home, I have been unable to re-connect to my network drives. I tried to remap them, but the other computer, drives, etc, aren't showing up in the My Computer or the Network area, or when I try to map them. My wife's laptop is having no problems. The drives still show up on hers without a problem and nothing has changed on her computer. So, I know it is the laptop with Vista that is the problem (don't want anyone telling me to download the patch for the XP). I am thinking this is a simple stupid little setting glitch that I am over looking, but I am at my wits end. If memory serves me, it did this before when I had the computer at the same school and I don't remember how I fixed it.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated!!

Check to make sure the machines are all in the same workgroup. You might have changed the workgroup when your laptop was a-visiting other premises

Yup...all the machines are in the same work group. Nothing changed there.

Are you able to ping back and forth (in both directions) by IP address and by the name of the other computer?

What about if you try to connect directly to a valid share on the other machine by using UNC path syntax? ( start / run / \\Other_machine_IP\Valid_share_name )

No...from this computer, it is not connecting to the main computer. But, from the other Vista machine, it connects just fine...so I know it is this computer that is the problem. So, I see no ping, no connection...nothing!

cjgrue said:

No...from this computer, it is not connecting to the main computer. But, from the other Vista machine, it connects just fine...so I know it is this computer that is the problem. So, I see no ping, no connection...nothing!

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Try completely disabling the firewalls on these machines while you're testing.

If they each successfully obtain a DHCP lease from the DHCP server (router?), ping really ought to work. If not, that puts you in a different class of problem again.

I honestly don't think it was that complicated. I have disabled the firewalls and had no luck. There has got to be a simple setting on this to make it work. It worked, I took it to a school, now it doesn't work but my other laptop still works! This is frustrating!