** Ashley lists@ashleyhowes.com [2003-06-01 10:04]:
From the other Windows 2000 boxes the machine shows up in Network Neighbourhood, but when I try to see what is shared I get an error saying the machine is not accessible.
Conclusion - Windows XP does not integrate easily into an existing Windows network!
I installed Windows XP on the same day as you and everything worked first time and it connected to my (XP) network, saw all the shares and connected to Internet Connection Sharing with one simple wizard. I think XP is very good at networking with other XP machines but it's notoriously bad for administration on big networks with NT/2000/2003 running on them.
This may be because the NetBEUI protocol is NOT installed by default in Windows XP. Based on my experience, Windows XP defaults to sharing folders over TCP/IP. In fact, those shares are advertised over the internet as well!
In order to get Windows XP to communicate with my older Windows boxes, I had to install NetBEUI from the XP disc by following the below tutorial: http://www.homenethelp.com/web/howto/HomeNet-Win2kXP.asp
** end quote [Ashley]
That would depend significantly on your existing setup. I don't use NetBEUI at all on my home network and never have. In fact when I hook up the odd Win31 machine I tent to replace NetBEUI on that with TCP/IP as well - although it's a separate download to get hold of it. I rarely if ever do that now, although I did hook my parents old 386 up to their new machine a few months back.
Yes, the services that Windows leaves open is a nightmare. I hooked up a Windows 2000 machine to the Internet via NTL a week or so back and within a couple of minutes of doing it I had a popup message on the screen from somewhere. I very quickly disabled the Messenger service!