home networking/file sharing

i think zone alarm, free version, is screwing up my file sharing ability. i have 3 computers on my home network and i notice that the 3 computers ip address interchange between .100,.101,.102 .exe files seem to share ok after resetting ZA settings on all 3 machines but .zip files won't "file permission access" any suggestions would be appreciated i have simple file sharing off windows firewall off. 2 machines are xp pro the other xp home. thanks in advance
p.s: permissions in shared folder are proper.

 

if you can browse your local network then ZA is set correct. You have all the sharing PCs in a trusted zone. Do you have accounts for all users on all PCs? Without using Simple File Sharing I think PC needs an account for each user to connect and get resources. If the folder these files are in is set correctly then you should be able to access all files no matter the type-
Given the user has rights to the folder.

That gives you a few places to look....

 

May be this can Help: http://www.ezlan.net/faq#trusted

If your problem is more of a general nature.

Log to this page it has a lot of links to instructions to Windows Network Settings, and Sharing.

Link to: Windows Network - Installing & Sharing.