File Sharing requires disabling/enabling of WLAN connection

[Flightvector]

OK, never to be the one who must usually post things like this, I have been stumped I have had file and printer sharing within my own LAN and it has worked fine in all aspects....until I installed Mcafee personal firewall plus 5.0, only this seems now to be unrelated to the issue. It may also be the 6 new windows updates as well.

The issue: Upon restart, I cannot connect to my other shared computers unless I do one of two things:

1. Turn QoS on or off (just toggle it once, regardless of whether QoS is on or off)

2. In the network connections, disable and re-enable the wireless connection

I literally have tried everything and have certainly gone over all basic items of troubleshooting (disable firewall, open ports, reinstall drivers, try without access connections, uninstall QoS) and am nearly too tired to try much else. Just hoping someone knows more about this or QoS conflicts, or have experienced similar. Also, simply toggling the wireless radio does not fix this. Help is appreciated.


Also, switching to IPX/SPX does work, but does anyone know if this has any drawbacks to network performance?

Sys Info: Nearly new IBM T42 2378DXU w/Intel 2200BG WLAN

[doolally]

I had the same problem - Get rid of Macafee and load Zone alarm instead Zone alarm has specific elements to allow file and device sharing in its "trusted zone".

If you don't fancy this approach, I presume that you only have the software loaded on the server? Was the server connected to the rest of the network when you installed the firewall?

What network are you using? 802.11b?

[Flightvector]

Thanks for the response doolally, yes, my "server" computer alone had the software loaded, and was connected at all times. I have determined via uninstalling that my firewall was indeed the culprit. I was running on a b-network, but just bought a Linksys WRT54GS router for g. However, I may just rely on its SPI stateful packet inspection, but am not entirely sure of the capabilities and ability of SPI to make accurate matchings; has anyone observed or have in-depth information of how SPI deals with unsolicited port requests or packets?

[Flightvector]

Ok, I think I have determined that the issue is solely due to the Mcafee Personal Firewall Plus software, because uninstalling it causes everything to revert to normal. In fact, I have found an absolutely huge thread in Mcafee forums with people having the same exact issue, despite many variations in configuration.

http://forums.mcafeehelp.com/viewtopic. ... a0085ce81c

It seems tech support is costly to contact and there is little the techs can do or say about the issue. I have not heard of an official statement of a problem in the code but one seems needed soon as all these users, most not novices, can't all be doing something wrong with setup.