I managed to establish a PC-to-PC network between two Windows XP Computers.
(Just ran the Home Networking Wizard -- didn't do anything else wrong).
However, when opening a Network Folder for the first time, the computer almost freezes (ie the Explorer Window) -- even the Pentium 4 3GHz. Actually it is worse in the P4 than in the PII 400MHz.
When opening a Shared Folder of P4 for the first time , via the PII the speed is ok.
But when opening a Shared Folder of PII for the first time, via the P4 it is extremely slow. It takes like 3 ~ 4 minutes to open the shared folder for the first time. However after that, I can press Back|Forward or even close and re-open the folder as usual.
I have this feeling that it is not normal.
I have used this PII to network with an Athlon XP 1700+ and I rememmber there was not much lagging problems. However I didn't have Firewalls in installed in both computers -- at that time. That's the only difference from now.
I have Firewalls installed in the both computers (the same product).
May be this causing the problem?
Please help. I am lost.
P.S:
This also happens when the computer is restarted and My Computer (in P4) is opened for the first time.