Win2000 Wireless on DLink Air Plus 650 with LinkSys and xp

[CanadianTek]

Wasnt sure where to post this one

But my buddies Glenn and Tracy have Win XP with a wireless talking to a Linksys router.. when i took over my xp system, and added myself to their "workgroup" i could share files.. see their printers.. everything was cool

i put their childrens Win 2000 system with a wireless dlink airplus 650 on the router, i could surf the net but 3 things happened

1) When i tried to see other systems in the workgroup, mine and their main.. it could see the workgroup but nothing inside, no shared files, when i went to search "computers near me" it could see itself.. in the workgroup

i could surf the net, and had set the right channel up.. etc..., but could not see other computers within the workgroup

When i tried to run the netsetup utility.. by xp, it said, hey, sorry.. only good for 98, me, and xp systems :S

so.. i let that be, and decided, hey since they want to share data and printers between the 2 systems, i should turn WEP on.. so that when i can sort out why they cant see each other, at least the data will be secure,

ODDLY..

2) when i turned on WEP, they could no longer get the win2000 on Air Plus 650 to surf the net.. and the green signal icon on the task bar, went burnt orange/red..

sooooooo i tried regenerating the passphrase, both router and pcmcia nic properties, in ascii, in hex, in 64 bit, .. no change, no surfing the net,

as soon as i turned WEP off.. bing.. they could surf again in ie


MY THEORY IS... since their WIN2000 is only SP2... i should get them to down load and install sp3? (i have heard sp4 has some big problems with networking over highspeed, (may only effect DSL/PPPoE users? not Cable?) - but didnt want to take any chances..

3) while visiting, i cleaned 210 spies off his system, nothing catastrophic, vx2 i think was the worst, all cleaned up fine, no problem.. AND i cant remember now if it was with ad aware, or spybot, but in the process.. i may have accidently.. dragged a folder into a folder..(since windows explorer was open in the background) on the win2000 system (it has one of those crazy touch pad mouse thingys.. at bottom of keyboard..) and
.. away went the normal cursors, and away went the "sandy beach" wallpaper..

now.. the win2000 system.. has just a black background for wall paper and a cartoonish dinosaur for a mouse pointer..

so i am not sure.. WHERE the "wall paper and cursor pointers are stored on the system, but if by accidently burying them in another folder .. took them out of reach of the O/S defaults, ANY ONE have any idea what those folders are called as i will bring them back to the surface.. so that all will be well .. again..

any help on any/all 3 of these quirks, please let me know.. appreciate that.. thanx

[icecube]

[Restek]