My Network Places Freezes Up

[chaswp]

I have two systems. The first one (Computer A) has had XP pro on it for a little over a year and has worked flawlessly to a point. The second machine (Computer B) is my son's system that had Win98 on it, and everything worked perfect on that as well. After much prodding, he convinced me to install XP Pro on his machine, of which I did. The systems have always been networked together using "computers to hub to router to cable modem".
On my son's computer, Computer B, when I double click on a "Network Place", i.e. a shared folder(s) on Computer A, Network Places freezes up. After waiting a bit, I bring up task manager and end the non responsive My Network Places and the desktop looses it's icons to which I have to do a "New Task" and type in "Explorer". Then the shared folders will open up like they are suppose to. The only problem is that some icons in the systray disappear until I reboot.
Any ideas on what could cause this?
Thanks,
C

[Mntsnow]

In the Tips and Tricks forum in the 2k,xp sections there is a couple of threads that deal with slow networking response with those operating systems. Check them out as they will more than likely help you with your problem.

Btw Welcome to XtremePcCentral.com!

[chaswp]

Can't seem to find these threads.
C

[Mntsnow]

Try

http://www.xtremepccentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=281&highlight=network+speed

http://www.xtremepccentral.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=402

[chaswp]

Thanks, but I did that already. This is not a case of a slow network, this is after a fresh boot, and when you click either on a shared folder for the other system in My Network Places or the mapped folder in My Computer...it just hangs till you ctrl alt delete and end task, then have to do a new task 'explorer' to get the icons back. Like I said..this is a brand new install. No other software other than the sp1 has been installed. The other strange thing that just started happening is the My Documents folder seems to pop up on it's own.

[Mntsnow]

Have you ran virus cleaning applications to make sure you dont have an infection? I would suggest using a couple of different makers so to be sure your clean.

[chaswp]

yep..ran 3 different ones and nada. I've taken this network down and put it back together 3 times and I keep running into the same thing. I'm totally stumped at this point. I took it off of the hub and went machine to machine with out an internet connection. Disabled the firewall and I just can't find it.

[Mntsnow]

Hmmmm....Putting on thinking cap...

[chaswp]

I wore out my damn thinking cap...now I'm trying to wear out someone's on these forums. :)

[MDS]

Can you ping each computer from the other? What are the computers labeled as and are they in the same workgroup?

[chaswp]

They pinged fine. One computer has my name, the other my son's name and they both belong to the same workgroup. That's what is so skrewy about this...I've been setting up little networks for years and have seen little problems, but never one this evasive. Thanks all for the input, but I tossed in the towel for the day.

[NDC]

Have you tried different NICs? I've come across situations where the problem was caused from malfunctioning NIC...

[SmileCenter]

I know this is an old post, but i have had a problem with my network places freezing / hanging up recently, and have not found one answer or solution to this problem other than what's been posted. End task on explorer.exe and re-run explorer.exe to get your desktop back. But even when you do that, you go in once, and you're froze right back up.

Wasn't til the other day, i was determined to find what caused this problem on my machine. Four days later at about 16 hours per day, i still could not find a solution on the internet, nor for myself. I decided to do a complete formatted drive and system re-install. During this re-install process, before any programs were loaded at all, just a fresh Windows XP install only, i was able to duplicate the problem. Even microsoft knowledge base does not show a solution to this problem that i could find.

Well, here it is . . .

It's not your network card, your router, your hub, your switch or your virus / ad-ware programs etc. It is simply the network options in the Add/Remove Windows XP components. One of the options is to install UPnP User Interface. Chances are you don't really NEED this option, but it looked cool, so you installed it. Or, at one point Windows XP pops up a message after installing asking if you want to be able to recognize UPnP devices on this system, and of course, if you're a tad bit over average user like me, or less, you probably hit yes. Hitting yes in return activated the UPnP option. With this option activated, a lot of people, like me, get the Network Places Freezing Up problem. Simply uncheck it and hit next to let windows xp do its thing. You should not have the problem anymore.

Hope this helps anyone out there with this problem, cause i have racked my brains and never could figure it out, and merely stumbled accross this solution during the re-install.
:chug:

[Mntsnow]

Thanks for your suggestion and welcome to XPC!

[webdrug]

I know this is an old post, but i have had a problem with my network places freezing / hanging up recently, and have not found one answer or solution to this problem other than what's been posted. End task on explorer.exe and re-run explorer.exe to get your desktop back. But even when you do that, you go in once, and you're froze right back up.

Wasn't til the other day, i was determined to find what caused this problem on my machine. Four days later at about 16 hours per day, i still could not find a solution on the internet, nor for myself. I decided to do a complete formatted drive and system re-install. During this re-install process, before any programs were loaded at all, just a fresh Windows XP install only, i was able to duplicate the problem. Even microsoft knowledge base does not show a solution to this problem that i could find.

Well, here it is . . .

It's not your network card, your router, your hub, your switch or your virus / ad-ware programs etc. It is simply the network options in the Add/Remove Windows XP components. One of the options is to install UPnP User Interface. Chances are you don't really NEED this option, but it looked cool, so you installed it. Or, at one point Windows XP pops up a message after installing asking if you want to be able to recognize UPnP devices on this system, and of course, if you're a tad bit over average user like me, or less, you probably hit yes. Hitting yes in return activated the UPnP option. With this option activated, a lot of people, like me, get the Network Places Freezing Up problem. Simply uncheck it and hit next to let windows xp do its thing. You should not have the problem anymore.

Hope this helps anyone out there with this problem, cause i have racked my brains and never could figure it out, and merely stumbled accross this solution during the re-install.
:chug:

I tried this and it did not help. When i click My Network places the window freezes and i have to ctrl-alt-del close explorer.exe then start explorer again. I can browse the Network by going to run.. \\computername but the networkplaces window always freezes. Some help? very annoying problem seeing as I use the network all the time.

[axel_2078]

Why are you going through a hub if you have a router? Anyway, try connecting to the shared resources on your son's machine by using the UNC. Ex. \\servername\shared_folder_name. If I'm on one of my Windows machines and need to connect to a resource on the other one and My Network Places doesn't work, I use the UNC and it always works. For example, if I'm on my computer named Tower and need to access the music folder on my computer called Windows, I would access it by opening the Run command and typing in \\Windows\music See if that works for you.

[dmackdaddy]

Funny, I've had this problem on my PC for months now, but I didn't really mind it much as I would just use the RUN: \\computername\share cmd. But now that one of the users I support asked me to fix it, I came up on this thread. For my machine and his machine; ADDING the UPnP driver in the Networking Components fixed it! So thanks for the info. as we're on the right track here, fellas!

Best,
dmackdaddy


:chug:

[ThRoNkA]

UPNP is VERY dangerous. It can be exploited.