>>
>>The ability to "see" other machines depends on Network Browsing. On a peer-to-peer network one of the machines is the Master Browser, which contains the list of resources available on the network. On a peer-to-peer network it can be hard to predict which one is the Master Browser. If it gets rebooted one of the others must become the Master Browser and it can take a little while for the list to get re-synced amongst all the machines. This sort of activity appears in your System Event Log as "Browser Election" events.
>>
>>Likewise if you turn off a firewall it may take a little while for the new resources to be "visible" on all computers.
>>
>>For test purposes, the most reliable way to try to connect to remote shares is via NET USE with an IP address e.g.
>>

>>REM In the command below use the IP address of the W2K machine
>>NET USE Z: \\192.168.0.101\D
>>

>>Note that in the above the /persistent switch is explicitly not used. This is because your machines are using DHCP, so the next time the W2K machine is booted it'll likely get a different IP address. That's why it's preferable to use the NetBIOS computer name - or set the W2K box to use a static IP instead.
>
>I enabled my Comodo fire wall and things are still working.
>
>Two questions, please:
>1. What is NetBIOS computer name? How is it different from the "normal" computer name?
>2. Do I set my W2k box to use a static IP on Linksys?
>
>Thank you very much!! for all your help and staying with me.

The NetBIOS name is the "computer name" you see in Control Panel...System...Computer Name. It has to be unique for each computer on each separate workgroup or domain.

You probably don't have to worry about making the IP address static on the W2K box if you've got it working using the computer name. But if you ever do, you don't need to touch the router - you do it on the W2K box.

Just set the IP address to 192.168.2.xxx, where xxx is anything from 002 to 099. The Linksys router's DHCP server doles out addresses starting at 192.168.2.100, so this guarantees you won't have an IP address conflict. If you do set a manual IP address, you will also have to manually set the default gateway and DNS server(s) addresses. This is a bit of a pain and requires more ongoing maintenance if anything changes (like your DNS server(s)), so sticking with dynamic IP addresses is nice, assuming you've got your networking going using NetBIOS computer names.