Turn off any firewalls for debugging.

If the firewall is the problem, you'll have to configure it

to allow access to "trusted zone" addresses. Note that some firewalls must be completely
uninstalled to stop them from affecting your networking.

Hold the Windows key and press R, then type CMD to open a command prompt.

In the command prompt window that opens, type type the following commands:

PING each remote computer by IP address, and if successful, PING by name. Open a
command prompt as described above and type.

PING <ip address>

or
PING <computer name>

Where:
<ip address> - is the x.x.x.x IP address
<computer name> - is the computer name

A failure to PING is almost always a firewall configuration issue. Any failure to PING
needs to be corrected before you go any farther.

Note: You can obtain the IP address and computer name of a computer by opening a
command prompt (DOS window) and typing IPCONFIG /ALL. This should work for any
Windows version. The IPCONFIG /ALL display will provide a wealth of useful information
for debugging your network connection.

Check your Services are Started on all PCs:

COM+ Event System (for WZC issues)

Computer Browser
DHCP Client
DNS Client
Network Connections
Network Location Awareness
Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
Server
TCP/IP Netbios helper
Wireless Zero Configuration (XP wireless configurations)
WLAN AutoConfig (Vista wireless configurations)
Workstation

Note: You can check the services in Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services.

All of these services should be started, and their startup type should be automatic.

If a service is not running, open it's properties and check the dependencies. Check each of the
dependencies and see which one is preventing the service from running. Checking the event
log is also a good idea here, there may be clues to what is failing.

All computers should be in the same workgroup for computer browsing to function properly.
File & Print Sharing has to be enabled on any computer you wish to share files or printers
from. You also need to actually share the resource in question from My Computer, right click
on the drive/printer/folder, and select sharing.

If you encounter difficulties accessing computers that are visible in Network Places (Network
and Sharing Center in Vista), make sure the computer being accessed has an account with the
same name/password as the system connecting to it uses to login.

While the default NetBIOS setting is correct for normal network configurations, it's possible
for it to be altered, and it costs nothing to make sure it's correct. NETBIOS over TCP/IP must
be enabled for normal network browsing.