18th May 2001
If you've recently introduced a Windows 2000 computer to your network, you might find that browsing the network doesn't reveal the new addition, thus you can't readily connect to its resources from another computer. There are several things involved with making this work properly. First, the obvious, the workstations should all be members of the same workgroup for this to work best. Second, you must ensure that you're using a common set of protocols on the network. By default, Windows 2000 does not install IPX/SPX or NetBEUI, leaving you only with TCP/IP. This is great for performance, but bad for browsing. IPX/SPX and NetBEUI both broadcast the existence of a PC so they will show up in the browse list maintained by the master browser on the network. TCP/IP does not have the same ability, however.
Once you have the protocol situation figured out, that leaves security. In order to even view the list of available resources on a Windows 2000 workstation, you must be authenticated since Windows 2000 relies on much tighter security than does Windows 9x/ME. When you attempt to connect to a Windows 2000 computer, the username/password you used to logon to the Windows 9x PC will be used to authenticate you to the Windows 2000 security system. This will only succeed if you have created an identical username with the same password used during logon with the Windows 9x PC, or you can enable the Guest account (not recommended for Internet-connected networks).
Once you're authenticated at a basic level, you will see the list of available shared resources to which you may be able to connect. Every shared resource can have it's own set of permissions, which also must pass the security test in order to connect. Once all of these ducks are in a nice, neat little row, things should work smoothly from then on... until you add machines or change the configuration, of course.