Question : Getting "the server service is not started" error when trying to connect to a PC using my network places.

Dear Experts,
I have a laptop on Windows XP Home, I am having problems connecting to any computers over the network.
The laptop is on the same workgroup name as the other computers and it is on the same IP range.
If I go through my network places to entire network to my workgroup name then double click on any of the computers I get the following error,
\\server is not accessible. You might not have the permission to use the network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions.
The Server service is not started.

This message is the same no matter which PC i try to connect to, its not just the server, the message "The Server service is not started" is happening on all of them.

Also if I goto Start -> Run and type in for example \\server\  I get the server box opening but its totally empty like its not finding any of the shares etc.

Just to add a spanner in the works, I have already got mapped drives connected to the server before this problem started occuring, these mapped drives still work perfectly and I can open files from them without errors or any problems.

If anyone could please shed some light on this problem for me as all I'm trying to do is connect to a shared printer on one of the PC's. (PS, I have tried \\PCNAME\Printersharename with no luck either. I get an "Incorrect Function" error message.

Thanks for your help, Mark

Answer : Getting "the server service is not started" error when trying to connect to a PC using my network places.

Hi & Thanks for the reply..

We had already tried that but sadly it wasn't the solution.. in the end we had to re-build the laptop (it had a load of viruses & spyware oni it anyway) but it would have been usefull to find out the cause...

Thanks again