Help with connection issue

[SirChick]

I cannot seem to get users from other locations to connect to me.

I put myip/login.php

but they get a time out error (include myself when i visit my own ip). how ever localhost/login.php .. works fine.

This happens on both my XP and Vista pc's. My XP pc is on a router, and i have put my ip in the "dmz" to exclude my ip from the router so that it is not being put through a firewall.

In my windows firewall apache is in exceptions list so that is ok also.
My apache logs do not show any errors related to it suggesting its not some loop in my php code which i knew it wouldn't be anyway.

Is there a windows "service" that must be turned on in order for it to work? There are a fair few turned off for performance reasons mostly, but i dont know which one may be needed to allow it work... does any one know?

[Danodemano]

I would tend to blame the router. You may want to check to see exactly what the "DMZ" means. In higher-end routers, you will still have to forward ports through for the web (80), ftp (21), etc. If you can access it from within your network, but not from the outside, then it's almost certainly the router that's mis-configured.

If it's not the router, then you need to add port-based exceptions to the Windows firewall as well, or turn it off altogether. You should try to turn the firewall off and see if that's what's causing it.

[SirChick]

hmm,

is port 80 the one i need for my router?

And on my windows vista, which is not on router as its in a different house, it used to work. But doesn't now, the only thing that could have caused it which i would find significant is:

i downloaded the most recent version of xampp (don't know if any settings resent that may need changing ?)
And i turned services off that i deemed shouldn't run upon load up automatically, how ever i don't know what service it is that may be linked to xampp.

I shall try allowing port 80 in my router for the other pc though! Let me know if you have any info on the services..

[Danodemano]

Port 80 is the one that you need to open, yes.

As for the services, if you can access the system from localhost, then there is nothing more that would need to be turned on.

If you had installed SP3 on the XP machine, that could have caused some problems also. I know that MS locked down some "security holes" on XP and it could have messed with the firewall settings. I would turn off the Windows firewall if you continue to have problems and see it you can get to it then.