I noticed this subject was discussed in 2005, but was never conclusively dealt with. I also noticed that the author had been active on a network before he lost it. He did not explain why. I will reopen this discussion because this can still be a problem, and it is so time consuming to solve.
I am a WinXP SP2 PC wireless networked to an XP SP2 Laptop. I (PC)was happily using networked files from the laptop, when the laptop was closed. Not only did I lose access to the network, as you would expect, but my program, Adobe InDesign, crashed. Even when I rebooted it continued to play up.
I was pretty upset because I was working on a brand new hard drive with freshly loaded every thing. The upshot is that I had to uninstall, reinstall InDesign to get it to work. But, I had no network. Even though the Laptop could access my printer and files, I had lost access to the laptop’s printer and files. Sure enough, the IP adress could not be read even though it was there.
After reading many solutions, I felt it might be the firewall. I wondered if it had cut me off as a protection when the Laptop was closed.
Yes, the network name and address was not listed in the firewall, but after adding these details and rebooting the printer and files, access to the network returned.
But, here are the bazaar bits–1)the files were not listed under My Network places. I found them finally after clicking View Workgroup computers then clicking open the laptop symbol.
2)the second bazaar thing is that I could not copy these files back into My Network places, but could Drop ‘n Drag them.
I write this, because I’m sure there are going to be others who have similar problems.
Cheril