Hello,
I'm new to this board but I have spent ages looking for information that might help me to no avail. I apologise if I've missed it in my searching, and I know this problem seems to crop up a lot. But if you have any advice, I'd be most grateful.
I have two laptops, one running Vista and one running XP. We're trying to play a game (we tried both Red Alert 2 and Battle for Middle-earth II, and we do have the most recent patches on both). We realised there was an issue when trying to play BFME II because we could see each other in the Lobby, and when one typed a message, it took about 10-15 seconds to show on the other's screen, and one could create a game, but when the other tried to join it, it would say "Failed: Connection Timed Out."
So began our quest. This is what we have tried:
1) Checking our IP addresses are in the same range.
2) XP: latest update and installation of LLTD Responder
3) Vista: latest update (SP2)
4) both have tried with Windows Firewalls turned off (and on with exceptions including File & Printer sharing and the specific games).
5) Turning off AVG.
6) Vista: Network Discovery, File Sharing both on, with the network set to Private.
7) XP: Network set to private.
8) Both have workgroup name "WORKGROUP"
9) Logging into our o2 (Thomson TG585 v7) router and opening ports 8808-65535 (as required for BFME II) - although I've done this according to step-by-step instructions, when I use various online port scanning sites, they all say that those ports are closed, so if this is the issue, I really need help in figuring out how to open the ports... I've logged in as SuperUser AND Administrator, made a manual entry of the port range from 8808-65535 set to be open on both my Vista machine and the XP machine, but this has made no difference. I know it's still saved because when I log back in, those ports are still there, but for all the good it does.
10) Logged into the router and disabled the firewall. I know, a bit dodgy. I re-enabled it as it didn't do any good anyhow.
11) Neither of us have an hidden firewalls that we might've missed that are running as I only run AVG anti-virus.
12) Vista: password protected sharing is turned off though I don't see how this is relevant anyhow as we're not trying to share files but to play a game.
On Vista, I can see the XP machine in the Network, and can access his public folders, but on the Wireless Connection Network Map, Vista is connected to the internet via the router, and his XP is down at the bottom saying it could not be placed on the map.
We have also tried connecting directly to one another with an ethernet cable, and this made no difference whatsoever other than that we had an "unidentified" LAN with limited connectivity, but it didn't do any good from what I could see.
We are using dynamic IP addresses, and I confess to not knowing much about IP addresses. I wouldn't think we'd need to set a static one to simply play a multi-player game (which, btw, yes we do each have our own version installed). We've tried connecting each laptop directly to the router with cables, directly to each other, and obviously preferably, just setting up a LAN through the wireless. No matter what combination of these things we've tried, I haven't seen a difference.
One issue that I don't know if is normal or not is that when both machines are running the game, we both automatically lose WiFi connection until we shut down the game completely. Normal? I don't know. But it might help solve the issue.
If you have any suggestions, please let me know! I'm pulling out my hair, and every tech-friendly person I've contacted that I know says "well, just make sure they both have the same workgroup name, and that Network Discovery is turned on," or "turn off your firewalls" as I suppose those are the most common mistakes, but we've tried that already.
It would be immensely helpful if I could discover if the source of the issue is the Vista-XP communication is rubbish, or if it's our router which I'm told is pretty horrendous. Or if it's both. Or if it's the port thing, which I don't really understand either.
Thanks for your time.
I'm new to this board but I have spent ages looking for information that might help me to no avail. I apologise if I've missed it in my searching, and I know this problem seems to crop up a lot. But if you have any advice, I'd be most grateful.
I have two laptops, one running Vista and one running XP. We're trying to play a game (we tried both Red Alert 2 and Battle for Middle-earth II, and we do have the most recent patches on both). We realised there was an issue when trying to play BFME II because we could see each other in the Lobby, and when one typed a message, it took about 10-15 seconds to show on the other's screen, and one could create a game, but when the other tried to join it, it would say "Failed: Connection Timed Out."
So began our quest. This is what we have tried:
1) Checking our IP addresses are in the same range.
2) XP: latest update and installation of LLTD Responder
3) Vista: latest update (SP2)
4) both have tried with Windows Firewalls turned off (and on with exceptions including File & Printer sharing and the specific games).
5) Turning off AVG.
6) Vista: Network Discovery, File Sharing both on, with the network set to Private.
7) XP: Network set to private.
8) Both have workgroup name "WORKGROUP"
9) Logging into our o2 (Thomson TG585 v7) router and opening ports 8808-65535 (as required for BFME II) - although I've done this according to step-by-step instructions, when I use various online port scanning sites, they all say that those ports are closed, so if this is the issue, I really need help in figuring out how to open the ports... I've logged in as SuperUser AND Administrator, made a manual entry of the port range from 8808-65535 set to be open on both my Vista machine and the XP machine, but this has made no difference. I know it's still saved because when I log back in, those ports are still there, but for all the good it does.
10) Logged into the router and disabled the firewall. I know, a bit dodgy. I re-enabled it as it didn't do any good anyhow.
11) Neither of us have an hidden firewalls that we might've missed that are running as I only run AVG anti-virus.
12) Vista: password protected sharing is turned off though I don't see how this is relevant anyhow as we're not trying to share files but to play a game.
On Vista, I can see the XP machine in the Network, and can access his public folders, but on the Wireless Connection Network Map, Vista is connected to the internet via the router, and his XP is down at the bottom saying it could not be placed on the map.
We have also tried connecting directly to one another with an ethernet cable, and this made no difference whatsoever other than that we had an "unidentified" LAN with limited connectivity, but it didn't do any good from what I could see.
We are using dynamic IP addresses, and I confess to not knowing much about IP addresses. I wouldn't think we'd need to set a static one to simply play a multi-player game (which, btw, yes we do each have our own version installed). We've tried connecting each laptop directly to the router with cables, directly to each other, and obviously preferably, just setting up a LAN through the wireless. No matter what combination of these things we've tried, I haven't seen a difference.
One issue that I don't know if is normal or not is that when both machines are running the game, we both automatically lose WiFi connection until we shut down the game completely. Normal? I don't know. But it might help solve the issue.
If you have any suggestions, please let me know! I'm pulling out my hair, and every tech-friendly person I've contacted that I know says "well, just make sure they both have the same workgroup name, and that Network Discovery is turned on," or "turn off your firewalls" as I suppose those are the most common mistakes, but we've tried that already.
It would be immensely helpful if I could discover if the source of the issue is the Vista-XP communication is rubbish, or if it's our router which I'm told is pretty horrendous. Or if it's both. Or if it's the port thing, which I don't really understand either.
Thanks for your time.
