Windows XP does not see Time Capsule.
Ok, I know there are like a million threads already about this issue, so since nobody seems to be responding to ANY of them (since I've posted on 4 or 5 of them.) I figured I'd make a new thread, detailing exactly what the problem is, what we've tried, and asking for any suggestions.
Problem:
Windows XP will not see, recognize, or communicate with the actual "Time Capsule" part of the TC. Meaning the hard drive, it uses the router beautifully, but it refuses to access or even acknowledge the hard drive in any way, shape, or form.
"Solutions" That we've tried.
The most common thing that people ask, and suggest (as it does seem to work for most) is to make sure that your workgroup is the same for the TC and Windows PC. (e.g. MSHOME.) We've done this, with multiple workgroup names, to no luck.
We've tried MSHOME, and LARRYWG which is what our workgroup was called in the first place, but still no luck. We've rebooted properly every time and everything, nothing.
The other suggestions that've been made, involve making sure that NetBIOS is enabled (which it is), trying to manually map the drive as a network drive (which won't work.), people making the obvious question of "Are you using Airport Utility?" (of course we are.), It's just that no matter what we try nothing seems to be working.
I had what I considered minor success, when I was looking at some Apple Help documentation in Airport Utility, that said that a certain windows update (Microsoft WPA2 Update) would cause "AirPort Express Assistant" to "not work as expected"
It then said "As a workaround, use AirPort Admin Utility instead of AirPort Express Assistant" Now, I know that AEA is not the same as AirPort Utility, but I still thought it might be an issue, so I googled AirPort Admin Utility, downloaded it, installed it, ran it, and of course, nothing showed up, like usual. But I figured I'd try to access the Time Capsule via it's IP Address before I gave up completely.
So I clicked on "Configure Other" (under File, I think), provided the IP Address, and the password, and..well.. viola. There it was, the Time Capsule, and all of it's properties, including it's correct name (Time Capsule) were brought up, the problem was, it was in the wrong program, I couldn't do anything with it, obviously, because it wasn't AirPort Utility.
So I went back into AirPort Utility, and tried to get in with the EXACT SAME FEATURE. "Configure Other", that is, and, just like before when we tried, it sits saying "Reading from the Apple Wireless Device. Please wait." For anywhere between 3-12 seconds, slowly moving up a progress bar. It eventually errors out. (Except for one time when the progress bar went away and left me with a blank, useless AirPort Utility screen, until I fiddled with it for a bit and the program crashed (gotta love Windows.) The error reads something about it not being able to connect and make sure our network is set up properly (which it is, because we have access to the internet, and we can even connect between the Mac and PC. It's just that the PC can't find the Time Capsule).
So this is where I hit a wall. I've tried absolutely everything I can think of, one guy on the forum even said that he had to change his TC to match the same channel as his Linksys was on, and I've looked all over and for the life of me can't figure out where I can see what channel our PC is running on, it's wireless is an External Belkin USB, if that would be the problem...
Fact is, I'm at a loss, thankfully the TC is running great on our Mac, doing backups properly, appearing in Finder properly, everything, it's just frustrating because we intended to use it as a backup for both our Mac AND PC, and I'm starting to lose hope.
Please, those of you having the same issue, post your experience in this thread, cry out for help from the people on the thread who are more technically savvy, and can explain things a little better to us. Please, please, please keep this thread bumped so it gets attention. I've been digging through I swear over 100 threads on this forum looking for a fix, and I can't find anything that we haven't already tried.
HELP.
Thank you for your time.
Problem:
Windows XP will not see, recognize, or communicate with the actual "Time Capsule" part of the TC. Meaning the hard drive, it uses the router beautifully, but it refuses to access or even acknowledge the hard drive in any way, shape, or form.
"Solutions" That we've tried.
The most common thing that people ask, and suggest (as it does seem to work for most) is to make sure that your workgroup is the same for the TC and Windows PC. (e.g. MSHOME.) We've done this, with multiple workgroup names, to no luck.
We've tried MSHOME, and LARRYWG which is what our workgroup was called in the first place, but still no luck. We've rebooted properly every time and everything, nothing.
The other suggestions that've been made, involve making sure that NetBIOS is enabled (which it is), trying to manually map the drive as a network drive (which won't work.), people making the obvious question of "Are you using Airport Utility?" (of course we are.), It's just that no matter what we try nothing seems to be working.
I had what I considered minor success, when I was looking at some Apple Help documentation in Airport Utility, that said that a certain windows update (Microsoft WPA2 Update) would cause "AirPort Express Assistant" to "not work as expected"
It then said "As a workaround, use AirPort Admin Utility instead of AirPort Express Assistant" Now, I know that AEA is not the same as AirPort Utility, but I still thought it might be an issue, so I googled AirPort Admin Utility, downloaded it, installed it, ran it, and of course, nothing showed up, like usual. But I figured I'd try to access the Time Capsule via it's IP Address before I gave up completely.
So I clicked on "Configure Other" (under File, I think), provided the IP Address, and the password, and..well.. viola. There it was, the Time Capsule, and all of it's properties, including it's correct name (Time Capsule) were brought up, the problem was, it was in the wrong program, I couldn't do anything with it, obviously, because it wasn't AirPort Utility.
So I went back into AirPort Utility, and tried to get in with the EXACT SAME FEATURE. "Configure Other", that is, and, just like before when we tried, it sits saying "Reading from the Apple Wireless Device. Please wait." For anywhere between 3-12 seconds, slowly moving up a progress bar. It eventually errors out. (Except for one time when the progress bar went away and left me with a blank, useless AirPort Utility screen, until I fiddled with it for a bit and the program crashed (gotta love Windows.) The error reads something about it not being able to connect and make sure our network is set up properly (which it is, because we have access to the internet, and we can even connect between the Mac and PC. It's just that the PC can't find the Time Capsule).
So this is where I hit a wall. I've tried absolutely everything I can think of, one guy on the forum even said that he had to change his TC to match the same channel as his Linksys was on, and I've looked all over and for the life of me can't figure out where I can see what channel our PC is running on, it's wireless is an External Belkin USB, if that would be the problem...
Fact is, I'm at a loss, thankfully the TC is running great on our Mac, doing backups properly, appearing in Finder properly, everything, it's just frustrating because we intended to use it as a backup for both our Mac AND PC, and I'm starting to lose hope.
Please, those of you having the same issue, post your experience in this thread, cry out for help from the people on the thread who are more technically savvy, and can explain things a little better to us. Please, please, please keep this thread bumped so it gets attention. I've been digging through I swear over 100 threads on this forum looking for a fix, and I can't find anything that we haven't already tried.
HELP.
Thank you for your time.
Intel Mac Mini, Mac OS X (10.5.2)
