I have two PCs - one XP Pro, one XP Home. I can get out to the internet on both. I can ping each by IP address but not name. I can connect to each by IP address but not name. If I add a host entry for each in the hosts file on each PC, I can connect by name. They are both using DHCP from my cablemodem. There are not hard coded DNS or WINS entries. I do not want to have to depend on the hosts file. Any ideas?
Are they both on the same Workgroup? If not, they cant see each other by name, but can ping each other by IP. It's always the small things that you overlook. Hope that helps.
You are still going to need a device to act as a DNS server, if you set your network settings to pick up DNS automatically, then something is going to have to advertise itself as the DNS server, this would normally be your network router.
