Cannot connect to LAN

I am having a problem. I own 2 emachines and a compaq at my house with a 4-port soho router. i have cable internet and i have the cable modem connected to the auxillary port on the router and 3 comps + ps2 to the other 4 ports. i have went through network setup wizard on my comp and another by the router. i went to firewalls and hit exceptions for file printer sharing. the comp by the router has a printer. i want to access the printer from my pc but when i go to network places my network doesnt show up. i try to click on show workgroup comps and it comes up with an error saying network cannot be accessed. i have read like all the support info from windows help center, and dont understand it. tech teacher told me to make an admin comp or something. i didnt do that. i dont know how to either. i dont want to have like one computer running all day just to run the network but i dont know anything about that. if u guys can help i would greatly appreciate it. =D

 

Give all your machines the same workgroup name.
Share a resource (drive or folder) on each machine -> right click, Sharing & Security, Just share.
Rebooting all machines sometimes helps machines be seen on a Windows LAN, too. You will have to do so regardless if you change the workgroup names on all the machines.
You will have to install the printer you want to access as a Network Printer on the PC you want to use it from by going into Control Panel -> Printer & Faxes -> Add New Printer-- drivers may be necessary, depending on the printer, OR Windows may be able to get them from the PC the printer is hooked to, OR Windows may have the necessary drivers built in.

 

what OS are you running
and also what firewalls if any do you have?

 

i have windows xp on all of them, my have a symantec nortan antivirus on both plus the router should have its own firewall. i made both of em on the same workgroup name and hit file sharing.