need assistance setting up office network "pretty please"

[pinky33]

At my place of work we have several (30+) computers that can not see each other. Some are apple, some are xp and most are vista. I do not know much at all about navigating vista. I am very familiar with XP though. And my computer at work has XP.

I have 10 computers at home all networked together. At home I go to Start, Run, and type " \\192.168.1.119 " or something like that and can see what ever shared folders I have shared from that computer. I can not do that at work and I will eventually need to set it up so it makes sense for the completely computer illiterate (co-workers) to operate.

I tried Start, run, \\***.***.*.*** but I can not see my co-workers computer. I also tried " my network places, view workgroup computers and nothing.

If somebody has the time to walk my through this I would be forever thankful. This will get me huge brownie points at work and eventually help me get paid more when I graduate from college and they offer me a full time position.

[VinnyTAMU]

At my place of work we have several (30+) computers that can not see each other. Some are apple, some are xp and most are vista. I do not know much at all about navigating vista. I am very familiar with XP though. And my computer at work has XP.

I have 10 computers at home all networked together. At home I go to Start, Run, and type " \\192.168.1.119 " or something like that and can see what ever shared folders I have shared from that computer. I can not do that at work and I will eventually need to set it up so it makes sense for the completely computer illiterate (co-workers) to operate.

I tried Start, run, \\***.***.*.*** but I can not see my co-workers computer. I also tried " my network places, view workgroup computers and nothing.

If somebody has the time to walk my through this I would be forever thankful. This will get me huge brownie points at work and eventually help me get paid more when I graduate from college and they offer me a full time position.

Could you give us some details regarding your network infrastructure? Network diagram?

[pinky33]

No I can't. I am only familiar with small home networks via a D-link,lynksys, netgear routers and hubs.

This is my first time tackling anything large. I don't even know where the router is. I do know where the phone router box thing is. It has Iwatsu written on it.

[pinky33]

Ok, i found the room with the router, switches, hubs, and all that stuff. We use mostly netgear and an at&t modem. While fallowing the cords back to the room I noticed randomly places switches and hubs and wire that lead nowhere and was just cut off at the end. There are cat5 cables hanging all around the building and in my office. Most work, lol. Also there are a few different companies occupying this building so resetting or turning off the internet is not possible.

[pinky33]

used an extra computer we have with vista to try to connect to a co-workers PC and have this

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v53/pinkfloyd33/networking.jpg

[pinky33]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v53/pinkfloyd33/networking2.jpg

[pinky33]

I can see half of the computers on the network.

Some ask for login/pass. I would have to go around to my co-workers and there computers and find out what the login/pass is if I really do need one.

some do not ask and I can see shared files just fine. Although I feel it is slow,but won't worry about that right now.

Thanks for any help.

[pinky33]

I figuared out what I needed for now.

Mods feel free to delete this thread.

thanks

[Mr.Guvernment]

Personally, i would say your way in over you head on this project, is this your job or just something you offered to do?

[AMD'er]

Personally, i would say your way in over you head on this project, is this your job or just something you offered to do?


I second that..although it doesn't seem as difficult as he makes it sound...some simple (file sharing) would be a good place to start but he still didn't give any detail as far as how are the computers are connected.....

[Mayonati]

There's a load of stuff that you need to do here.. Check connectivity between hosts, and servers in use, set up file and print sharing between then all.. And it'd be easier to use an auth server and Active Directory to assign users/groups/resources.

You could charge a fair whack to design that kind of network for a company :D

[thehacker010]

I posted several things mentioned above earlier, but I ended up deleting it because you posted that you have it taken care of for now.

The first mistake is that there are more than 10 computers on a workgroup. After 10-12 computers, it should be switch over to a domain. That way you have an active directory and can create user groups with shared file privileges.

My guess is that Vista had password protected sharing turned on by default.

[Mr.Guvernment]

Domain controllers are nice, but those alone are alot of work to learn and implement, sure once in place they are a god send.

Not all offices need them though and can be over kill.