What is the big problem with XP home seeing ANY other
M$ OS shares?

Server is Win2kpro, Laptop is XPhome.

Server is sharing a folder that's needed by Laptop, laptop
can't see 2kpro???

I'm basically here for info on possibly WHY this is happening and
maybe something simple that can be done.

Interesting to note that when laptop is plugged into home network
(running 98se) double clicking on network places caused me to see
a 'Flash' of all the shared drives on my main machine, before they
disappeared. (note that said machine does not show up as existing) Heck, they're on the same workgroup, all my linux
machines see it no problem, what's the big deal?

Yes.. if I tell winxp the ip of the machine it finds the folders no problem
but WHY (so stupid) WHY doesn't it show up?


Some kinda sick joke *sigh*

Your Linux is using the WINS/lmhost style to query machines. Your XP is using the DNS to query machines. Probably none of your local PC/laptop have valid DNS names. Try putting the static IP/pcname in
c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts and lmhosts

quickest way to put it in a file, type this at the cmd prompt.

echo 192.168.1.5 winxpnam >> c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\lmhosts

Everyone else has only pointed me to
"You cannot disable simple file sharing under XP Home"
While that information is concise (though I'm still a firm
believer there's a fix for it short of upgrading to pro) it's
not exactly helpful info LOL.

2 points of interest though (being as this IS a winxpHome machine)

the 'echo' command is not found so I searched for the hosts file
manually and it resides in C:\I386

Adding the IP and compname to that file worked perfectly!
Everything shows up as it's supposed to

Thank you VERY much

Now I just need to find the IP of the server that's a couple
hundred miles away from the laptop and enter that one in. LOL
That way when they take it back up there, it'll work for them
as nicely as it does for me.
I'm Soooo glad I installed PCAnywhere on that thing LOL

Thanks again

There's got to be something else missing, as that
didn't work when it arrived up there....
The main differences in the network is the machine sharing
the folder is win2k and it's connected to the laptop
by hub instead of router.