Getting 'access denied' error with wireless router

I have a PC running XP Pro connected by cable to a router and a laptop running XP Pro connected by WiFi to the router. Both the PC and the laptop can see each other and they both have permissions set for File & Printer Sharing. The PC can access the laptop without any problem. The laptop can see the PC and the printers on the PC, but I keep getting the message "Access Denied," which seems to be a common problem with wireless connections. I tried inputting the TCP/IP details generated from the router, but that doesn't help either. Your help would be much appreciated.

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Here are a few possible culprits in such a situation (which is familiar, since I have an in-home network with an almost identical setup):

  1. If your desktop system has a firewall, make sure the desktop does not have File and Printer Sharing firewalled off or disabled in the firewall. (If you can ping in one direction but not the other, that's a possible sign that the one not responding to ping may be firewalled.)

  2. Rebuild the network stack on the desktop computer. You can do this with the command netsh int ip reset c:resetlog.txt (which will create a log of the network-stack rebuilding in the file c:resetlog.txt).

  3. Make sure the notebook computer has valid credentials to browse on the desktop machine (i.e., a valid username and password). This is one of the most commonly-overlooked elements in Windows networking: that the machine doing the accessing has been logged on with a username and password that's also on the machine being accessed.

This was first published in December 2006

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