Network Diagnostics scans your system to gather information about your hardware, software, and network connections.

Start / Run / NETSH DIAG GUI

The following is the type of information that can be displayed:

• Ping
• Connect
• Show
• Verbose
• Save to Desktop
• Mail Service
• News Service
• Internet Proxy Server
• Computer Information
• Operating System
• Windows Version
• Modems
• Network Clients
• Network Adapters
• Domain Name System (DNS)
• Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)
• Default Gateways
• Internet Protocol Address
• Windows Internet Naming Service (WINS)

If you've worked on previous versions of Windows,
there are times when you need to completely reinstall the TCP/IP protocol stack.
This is typically due to corrupted files.

To do this with XP,
you need to run a small script:

netsh int ip reset [ log_file_name ]

the log_file_name needs to be specified.

e.g.
netsh int ip reset ip_reset.txt

When you add drives to your computer, such as an extra hard drive, a CD drive, or a storage device that corresponds to a drive, Windows automatically assigns letters to the drives. However, this assignment might not suit your system; for example, you might have mapped a network drive to the same letter that Windows assigns to a new drive. When you want to change drive letters, follow these steps:

1. Right-click My Computer, and then click Manage.
2. Under Computer Management, click Disk Management. In the right pane, you’ll see your drives listed. CD-ROM drives are listed at the bottom of the pane.
3. Right-click the drive or device you want to change, and then click Change Drive Letter and Paths.
4. Click Change, click Assign the following drive letter, click the drive letter you want to assign, and then click OK.

You will not be able to change the boot or system drive letter in this manner. Many MS-DOS-based and Windows-based programs make references to a specific drive letter (for example, environment variables). If you modify the drive letter, these programs may not function correctly.

source: www.dougknox.com

If you need to share multiple folders, running the program SHRPUBW.EXE will bring up a simple dialog box to let you:

1. Browse to the folder you want to share
2. Enter in a Share name
3. Ender in a Share description
4. Set permissions. Several choices are available
5. Restart the process from within the same program

The symptoms when Winsock2 is damaged show when you try to release and renew the IP address using IPCONFIG.

And you get the following error message:
An error occurred while renewing interface 'Internet': An operation was attempted on something that is not a socket.

Also Internet Explorer may give the following error message:
The page cannot be displayed Additionally, you may have no IP address or no Automatic Private IP Addressing (APIPA) address, and you may be receiving IP packets but not sending them.

There are two easy ways to determine if Winsock2 is damaged:

From the XP source files, go to the Support / Tools directory

Winsock Test Method 1
Run netdiag /test:winsock

The end should say Winsock test ..... passed

Winsock Test Method 2

1. Run Msinfo32
2. Click on the + by Components
3. Click on the by Network
4. Click on Protocol
5. There should be 10 sections if the Winsock2 key is ok

MSAFD Tcpip [TCP/IP]
MSAFD Tcpip [UDP/IP]
RSVP UDP Service Provider
RSVP TCP Service Provider
MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip...
MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip...
MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip...
MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip...
MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip...
MSAFD NetBIOS [\Device\NetBT_Tcpip...

If the names are anything different from those in this list, then likely Winsock2 is corrupted and needs to be repaired.
If you have any 3rd party software installed, the name MSAFD may be changed.
There should be no fewer than 10 sections.

To repair Winsock2

1. Run Regedit
2. Delete the following two registry keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Winsock
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Winsock2

Download Reg file to delete these entries

3. Restart the computer
4. Go to Network Connections
5. Right click and select Properties
6. Click on the Install button
7. Select Protocol
8. Click on the Add button
9. Click on the Have Disk button
10. Browse to the \Windows\inf directory
11. Click on the Open button
12. Click on the OK button
13. Highlight Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
14. Click on the OK button
15. Reboot

Or Download Reg file to add the correct registries back in

source: www.onecomputerguy.com

There are a lot of things which can negatively impact how fast XP will browse network shares.
One has been previously covered regarding browsing to Win9x computers.

Other things you can try, especially when there is slow browsing to network shares with a lot of files:

1. Remove current shortcuts in My Network Places

2. Change the registry so shared folders on remote computers are not automatically added to My Network Places when you even open a document from that shared folder

1. Start Regedit
2. Create a DWORD value:
3. HKEY_Current_User \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Explorer \ NoRecentDocsNetHood to 1.
4. I have also seen setting the following help as well.
   HKEY_Current_User \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Explorer \ UseDesktopIniCache to 1.

Download Reg file to do both

3. Increase the amount of data is buffered at one time to send to a client.
On the computer with the shared directory:

1. Start Regedit
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\

1. Create a DWORD Key called SizReqBuf
2. Give it a value of Hex FFFF

Download Reg file

source: www.onecomputerguy.com