I haven't been following this thread enough to know if someone mentioned this, but in order for your XP machine to communicate with anything else on the network (besides the Internet) all of the machines must belong to the same workgroup. The default for XP is usually MSHOME or WORKGROUP. You can set a workgroup in Samba that matches your XP workgroup, or change your workgroup in XP. I think the default in Samba is WORKGROUP. To check (and change) your workgroup in XP, right click 'My Computer' and select properties from the context menu that pops up. Click the tab titled 'Computer Name'. You will see the workgroup that XP belongs to in the information on this tab. If you need to change the workgroup click the 'Change' button, also on this tab. In the workgroup filed change the text to match what your Samba configuration says is the workgroup. If XP's workgroup matches Samba's already, it is sometimes worth renaming your computer, clicking 'Ok', and going through the XP Network Wizard that starts up as soo as you click 'Ok'. Windows can be flakey at times, and repeating previous work can sometimes fix a problem. Good luck, and I am sorry if this was covered. James W