Problems connecting to interent with new laptop

I really hope someone can help me with this as it's doing my head in.
i have just bought a new HP9385 laptop running Vista Home Premium. When i first tried it, it connected wirelessly to the internet OK but would not see the rest of my home network (a desktop and a wireless laptop). I tried to get it to see the rest of the network, but I have now lost the internet as well!
The desktop is wired into an Origo ethernet modem, and the other laptop connects via a Belkin54g wireless access point. They can both see each other and the internet, but neither can see the HP
The HP says it is connected to the belkin, but access is local only. All the bits work individually, but i have obviously set something up wrong on the HP (I have not used Vista before).
Can someone help me out?

 

Go to the device manager and see if you have the wirelss adapter, if not, you will have to re-install it again.

 

Thanks very much for your help.
I have checked the Intel pro/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection in Device Manager, and it is present and working properly. This would make sense, as the HP is seeing the Belkin wireless access point OK.
Can you tell me what else I can check? Any help would be apppreciated.

 

Have you checked on your nic adapter if your WEP/WPA is setup? This must match with what you have setup in the router.

 

Umm..Am i correct when i say that the desktop and the other laptop is running Windows XP. If so they wouldn't be visible by the Vista laptop....you need to download this and install it on the computers running Win XP.

If they still can't see each other after that then it sounds like a firewall issue...check ur antivirus settings.

BTW can the HP Vista laptop connect to the Internet okay?

 

You are absolutely right, I was trying to help him to recover first internet on his lap, then solve the network issue.

 

I am not quite sure what an nic adapter is, but my wireless network is unsecured, so no wep/wpa is set up. Do I stll need to check the mic adapter on the HP, and if so, how do I do this?

 

Thanks for that.
I have downloaded and installed the LLTD Responder on my desktop, which is running XP Service Pack2, and I have turned off auto-protect and personal firewall in Norton Protection Center on the HP, but they still can't see each other.
When I go into the network and sharing center on the HP, it finds the HP-PC on a workgroup called MSHOME on an unidentified network, and an internet gateway device on an undentified network.
Do i need to set up a private network for tese to see each other?

In answer to your final question: No, the HP cannot connect to the internet, although it does say is is connected to the Belkin wireless access point.

My desktop connects to the internet fine.

I hope this gives you enough information to be able to help me, as it is really frustrating.

 

Check the workgroup names on your XP computers.

 

I believe that _Vista has been designed to be very "suspicious" of unknown networks, and, because MS mucked up WinXP Home networking by gelding the full networking functionality of WinXP Pro/NT so that all you can have on a WinXP Home machine is a "workgroup," your _Vista machine may simply be acting "shy" around the unknown network.

What you should do is check on each of your other systems to see what workgroup they're joined to. If you've never set one up, it'll probably be something like MSHOME (if I remember correctly - no guarantees, though ). Next, to "acquaint" each of the machines with the others properly, you should set up a new workgroup and add all the machines to it - you do that simply by going into the system information for each machine, clicking the radio button or tick box for joining a workgroup, and then put the new name you want for your workgroup into the form field, and click "Ok."

By doing that, your _Vista machine should play nice and connect properly to the internet (fingers crossed here - there's no accounting for _Vista sometimes).