Computer Issue: My XP laptop can't access my shared HD on my W7 Desktop

Andyman

Andyman

Scroungus Stereophilus
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Well the title pretty much sums it up, but here's some backstory.

A couple months ago my $30 garage sale P4 desktop dropped dead and after some searching I picked up a pretty nice HP XW8400 workstation w/ 8 GB ram and diual Xeon Dual core 3.0 CPUs dirt cheap. Liked it so much I got one for the wife. I did have some issues with it as it was a workstation from a pro video company and had a Raid installed, but Kegger and I got it running in XP. It only saw 4 Gb of RAM and I found out about the 32 bit 4 GB limit, so I installed W7 64 bit on it and it's working sweet. I actually have 16 GB on it now as I found another server with the same RAM to harvest.

We also picked up a couple more Dell E6400 laptops and installed XP SP3 on them, and they seem to work fine too except the won't network with the W7 machines. I can see the machines in my Network places, but when I click on my W7 desktop name, it doesn't open up to reveal the drives, even the shared ones. On my wife's machine though, I can see her shared printer; on mine I can't

I Googled around a bit and am pretty sure (I'll be real sure later tonight, after I go line by line) that they are both set up the same, so it's frustrating to not be able to see wheer I've gone wrong.

Anybody got any tips or tricks? i've got all the sharing set wide open w/o specific users or passwords, so that shouldn't enter the mix. I'd really like to get this set up so we can print from the laptops and I can use my laptop as a music server once I cradle it in the port replicatior.

Let me know, and TIA!!!:thmbsp:
 
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Check the firewall settings on the Windows 7 box. Then go into the Network and Sharing center, check your homegroup and turn on the network discovery setting.
 
Looks fine and the W7 machine can get into the XP laptop, but the laptop can't get into the W7 machine.

When I go to add Network Place all is fine until I get to the W7 desktops. I can see them, but when I click on them, the "+" box goes away and it just lays there; no devices or drives are revealed even though they are set up in W7 as shared.
 
Thanks Dave!!!

I'll check it out later tonight and report back. Gotta go and take advantage of this beauteous day and do some garage work right now!
 
I'm looking good on all that stuff so far. Here's a screenshot from my laptop of the issue when I go to add a new network place. It shows the two W7 workstations (AndyDesktop and Cindy-8400) but it doesn't open them up???

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Make sure network discovery is enabled for both computers (and make sure it's not just enabled for your "homegroup" on the Win7 computer, XP doesn't do homegroups).

That should let you browse the computer but I'll bet you'll run into permissions issues (turning off password protected sharing and giving full control to "everyone" is only half the battle). If you run into problems with that let me know and I'll dig out my cheat sheet when I'm at work tomorrow.
 
Couple of things -- what Antivirus is running on each unit? Most common sharing issues have to do with protection software.

The screen shot you have shows MSHOME workgroup, so atleast one unit is on the wrong workgroup. The default for W7 is WORKGROUP, the default on WXP Pro is WORKGROUP, and the default on WXP Home is MSHOME.

No plus sign next to a networked computer in the browser usually means nothing is currently shared.

.dew.
 
Both systems run Avast free version

Ignore MSHOME, all are in WORKGROUP. MSHOME is an artifact from long ago. I'm not sure where it's coming from

The no plus is the kicker as W7 indicates shares E: music as shared, but the XP laptop doesn't see it as such...

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I ran into this once and solved it by changing the workgroup name on all PCs to something new and unique.
I could then access each drive from each PC.

Worth a shot?
 
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robgmn said:
I ran into this once and solved it by changing the workgroup name on all PCs to something new and unique.
I could then access each drive from each PC.

Worth a shot?
Click to expand...

didn't work.
SOS with the W7 machine not being opened and the "+" disappearing
 
Andyman said:
Didn't work. I believe all my settings already were as directed.

Frustrating, isn't it??
Click to expand...

Are you just not seeing the shares or is it not connecting at all?

Have you tried accessing the PC through explorer by its IP? Just bring up the run prompt and enter //(LAN IP), without the brackets

Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk 2
 
OK, maybe this will help..
i just tried to add my desktop printer to the laptop and it tells me access is denied and prompts me for a user id and password.
i'm really sure that i set this all up to NOT require this, but i'll go back in one more time to see if there's something small I missed.
 
Andyman said:
OK, maybe this will help..
i just tried to add my desktop printer to the laptop and it tells me access is denied and prompts me for a user id and password.
i'm really sure that i set this all up to NOT require this, but i'll go back in one more time to see if there's something small I missed.
Click to expand...

Yeah....try using your win 7 name and pass. I never figured out why despite settling it to not require credentials, it does anyway.

To get an IP, bring up command prompt, run ipconfig. The IP address will be listed somewhere in there. You can also go to network connections, right click on the network, hit status, and somewhere in there (maybe n a tab, possibly main page) will list the IP address.

Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk 2
 
dewdude said:
Yeah....try using your win 7 name and pass.
Click to expand...

OK, THAT worked, so maybe we're getting somewhere.

At least I can use my printer now from the laptop :)

WAIT A MINUTE!!!!

Now my shared folders are popping up all over the place. I'm in business!!!!

I never figured out why despite settling it to not require credentials, it does anyway.
Click to expand...

That's really about as lame as it gets :grumpy:

Thanks SO much for the assist!! :thmbsp:
 
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Andyman said:
OK, THAT worked, so maybe we're getting somewhere.

At least I can use my printer now from the laptop :)

WAIT A MINUTE!!!!

Now my shared folders are popping up all over the place. I'm in business!!!!



That's really about as lame as it gets :grumpy:

Thanks SO much for the assist!! :thmbsp:
Click to expand...

Glad that worked.

A while back I stopped questioning why Win7 did or didn't do something properly and decided to just make it happy.

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