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Try running an nbtstat -a against each computer, and paste the results here, or just e-mail me at leo dot green at gmail dawt com

Can both machines always access the internet through that router or not? Basically I am wondering if it is something that totally takes down the network (no access anywhere) or if it is something that only stops communication between the 2.

What version of Windows?
Are both versions at the exact same patch level?

Have you considered an external device (like an inexpensive network-attached storage)?

Can you get into the router/firewalls interface, it may be set to block some, or most trafic between wifi boxes. ???

Also, for a test, temporarily turn off the windows firewall and try. If it works turnt he firewalls back on and adjust them.

I think he said he tried that?

How exactly are you trying to access these boxes? Via network neighborhood? I find in workgroup cases, NN is a piece of trash. Can you access the servers directly? i.e. by \\server\share? or even \\ipaddress\share?

Russell wrote:Both machines can always access the router and internet just fine, even when frozen attempting to copy a shared file out of a shared folder.

This is only anecdotal, But I had two machines talking to each other just fine for over a year. Then one program (Vypress chat) for conversation between machines partially quit working. To shorten the story I ended up losing one of the machines but put the harddrive in an extenal case and could still use the program. The new machine one day pops up "Windows is blocking some elements of Vypress, would you like to unblock?"

Here's the kicker the program elements were being blocked under XP, but it was Vista that said it was being blocked and gave me the option to unblock.

I have not researched it yet, but it is very odd, to me.

[quote="nitrogen"]I think he said he tried that?

[quote]

He did, I meant (or was thinking) turn off the "allow exceptions" and try. Some times the registry gets a bit goofy. IF you turn off allow exceptions then nothing should work. If a flag has become inverted, then Turing it off will actually have the opposite effect. Then you simply hit the restore defaults button and go on.

Now that I think about, hit the restore defaults setting in the firewall window's advance tab and see if that works.

The other thing that comes to mind, is a long shot,
Go back to where you set the workgroup name and change each machine to a new workgroup. Call it Mynet or something, as long as it is the same on each computer.

A few times in the past I have had computers with a hidden character or other oddball glitch in the workgroup name that is not visible on the dialog box. Taking them out of the workgroup and putting them in an other work group resolved the problem.

Some low-end wireless routers only support one full-duplex connection at a time, which can cause issues when trying to run full-duplex wireless to full-duplex wireless. You MAY be able to convince your wireless network cards to run in half-duplex and have better luck, since this means that only one laptop at a time will be talking and the other listening, instead of both of them talking and listening at the same time.

As to the NAS thing, I was thinking more like the Xinet NAS drives that you attach directly to the network and that use a lightweight protocol with very minimal configuration. I have one at home that I share between 4 computers at the same time and it just plugs into the switch & does its thing.