XP can't see Windows 7 in network places

I have two computers. I'll call them "mine" and "his".
"mine" has both Vista and Windows 7 installed (dual boot), "his" has XP Home.

When I boot "mine" into Vista, the networking works perfectly. Vista and XP can see files and printers and all is great.

When I boot "mine" into Windows 7, I can see "his" computer and access his files and his printer. However "his" computer doesn't even see "mine" show up in My Network Places.

I've checked the workgroup in Windows 7 and it's the correct name.
I've gone to the Network and Sharing Center in Win 7 and set my Network to "Home network".
I played briefly with the "HomeGroup" thing in Win 7 until I reached the point where it said it only worked for computers running Win 7. However it does says HomeGroup: Joined (and it appears that I've joined a HomeGroup).

So now what? Why can't XP see the Windows 7 computer?

try go into the Network and Sharing Center...then choose Homegroup and Sharing Option. Try turn on the network discovery setting. See this --> Vista Network Discovery - Setting Network Locations | Windows Server Traininghttp://windows-server-training.com/vista-network-discovery/

Have you tried using search for networked computers in XP?

How to search for a computer on the network in Windows XP

Can you ping the Windows 7 PC from the XP machine?

Can you access the Windows 7 computer by typing its IP address in XP's explorer address bar?

Open Windows Explorer on XP and type in the address bar...

(Example if your Windows 7 PC's local network IP address is 192.168.1.2, you would type):

^^^Replace with YOUR Windows 7 Local Network IP Address

Another way is entering the Windows 7 pc name like this:

Example if your Windows 7 PC was named "Windows7":

goto his pc, goto Start-Run, type "\\mine" ( assuming your computer's name is mine ) and then it should open the shared forlders on your computer.

if it doesn't work, you need to check if you can ping it like OEM said...

Thanks you for all the suggestions. Here's what happened when I tried them all:

First, on Windows 7:
Network discovery was already on
File and printer sharing was already on
Public folder sharing was already on

On the XP machine:
I could successfully ping the windows 7 machine
If I did start->run \\mine or if I put \\192.168.1.107 in the URL in IE I got a box that popped up looking for a username and password for my windows 7 machine.

I was not able to log into the windows 7 machine however. I do not have a password set up on either of the machines and when I put my windows 7 username in but left the password blank, it gave me a Logon Failure: User account restriction error and said blank passwords are not permitted.

The way my machines are set up, neither my husband nor I uses a password. And we only have one account on each machine set up as an administrator account. I do not want to have multiple accounts per machine. I have a second drive on my computer in which we store all our data. My husband backs up his data onto that same drive. Therefore it's really important that he be able to access it. I do have sharing turned on for that drive and have set the permissions for Everyone to have full access.

So, now what do I do?
The windows 7 machine still does not show up in My Network Places on XP but obviously it has some knowledge that the machine exists.
I really don't want to set up passwords. For us, that's an annoying waste of time.

Many thanks again for the advice.

HEy

Im having a very similar situation

I have a 7 machine with a homegroup and my t400 running XP.

My T400 xp box is able to see my 7 Machine. I can acces some public folders ect. However my 7 machine will not see my xp box. Every now and again my 7 machine will show the xp machine name T_400 in network in explorer but when i click on it it asks for a user name and password. But it denies access when you use the the user name and password for the t400. I am the only user profile and it is set up as admin. I even tryed turning off the firewall on the T400 xp box.

I was able to ping both machines back and forth.

Useing a run command ( \\MachinenameC$) did not work as well. Gave me a DNS error

Any thoughts?


Is there a problem with 7 and xp connectivity?

@Deb27 and Automag:Turn on guest account on the windows 7 machine. You can do this as well to make sure the permissions are accurate.
Download the following and install to the w7 machine.
Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools
http://files.getdropbox.com/u/976813/rktools.exe
after installation is complete, click on: Start, All Programs, Windows Resource Kit Tools, Command Shell
Then enter the following commands. (Attention: they are case sensitive.)
net user guest /active:yes
ntrights +r SeNetworkLogonRight -u Guest
ntrights -r SeDenyNetworkLogonRight -u Guest
The first command enables network access for Guest, the two subsequent ones change two different policies to allow network access for Guest.

By doing what "zay" says you are opening your computer up, if anyone gets onto your network they will have full access without you knowing about it. You would be much better off to just use a password.

There is a reason the GUEST account comes DISABLED by default, if not used properly its a huge security hole.

In the past I offered the option to just create a user account with a password on the w7, and use that as the account to log on with, (that is what I did), but they did not want that. That is why I offered the next option. I know the ramifications of my prior solution, but I was just offering what they wanted. My apologies for that.

They will all "see" each other using the old "workgroup" setup. As you have discovered, Homegroup will not resolve the issue and Network discovery is limited. While I'm not sure about the security risks of the "Workgroup" setup (I'm sure someone here will say what they are and how to work around them) it is a sure way for "mine" and "his" to get along. I have an XP machine, an XP and 7 dual boot, a 7 machine and a Freenas server networked this way and everyone plays well together...

Thank you for the comments and suggestions and yes I do understand there are security risks when you don't use a password and/or give a guest account full access - but it's good you point that out for others who are reading this.

I managed to get it working but I'm not quite sure what happened.

First, and probably most importantly, I went back to the Network and Sharing Center -> Change Advanced Sharing Settings and this time noticed the scroll bar. Scrolling down I found the option to turn off the password protected sharing.

Magically, my windows 7 machine showed up in the XP Network places!

Then I ran into a problem in which my 2nd hard drive - which is the one we back up all my data onto, couldn't be accessed by XP. And then I discovered it couldn't be accessed by Windows 7 either - which was very strange because I'd just been using it and it disappeared. So I booted into Vista and it couldn't see it either! It showed up in My Computer as "Unknown G:". If I clicked on it it just said "Folder is not accessible. Access is denied." I couldn't even do a chkdisk on it or see the drive label or find out how much disk space was used.

After a lot of frustration, I had to turn off sharing, re-take ownership of the disk and re-do all of the protections which I had done before and turn sharing back on. Finally the drive was back to normal in Vista. I then went back to Win 7 to confirm the drive was back to normal. It was. And finally, I looked at it from XP and I could see my data.

So it's working. But I have no idea why the ownership suddenly disappeared (became invalid)??

Here is an interesting question

So if i stick my Macbook on 10.4 os in explorer it shows up, i can click on it and enter the user name and password for the mac and presto. Im in. The T400 shows up on explorer prompts for password and wont let me in. So they see each other but why cant i have access? I tryed to reset password to make sure. There is no network password in xp like 7 homegroup pass correct?

xp

automagp68 said:

Here is an interesting question

So if i stick my Macbook on 10.4 os in explorer it shows up, i can click on it and enter the user name and password for the mac and presto. Im in. The T400 shows up on explorer prompts for password and wont let me in. So they see each other but why cant i have access? I tryed to reset password to make sure. There is no network password in xp like 7 homegroup pass correct?

Click to expand...

Correct no homegroup either

Ken

zigzag3143 said:

Correct no homegroup either

Ken

Click to expand...

Hey Ken! Hope all is well. Havnt talked to you in a few weeks. So you got any ideas why when i use my credentials for my T400 it wont grant me access? The even funnier part is i shut the firewall off on my T400 ect so i shouldnt need any credentials or anything right? I tryed the old click ok or cancle on the password screen with no luck either.

Anythoughts

your problem is probably caused by NT Lan Manager authentication level.
open Local Security Policy under Administrative Tools.
Navigate down the tree: Security Settings | Local Policies | Security Options
Find: Network Security:LAN Manager authentication level
Set To: Send LM & NTLM - use NTLMv2 session security if negotiated

Please let me know if this solves your issue!

XP Can't See Windows 7 Computer

I could see the and access all XP files from my Windows 7, but not Windows 7 Computer from the XP.

FYI, my set up is a netgear wireless router connected to Windows 7 desktop via ethernet cable, and wireless XP Laptop to router.

My problem was the "Client for Microsoft Networks" was UNCHECKED in the Wireless Network COnnection Properties Dialog (Network Connections -> Wireless Network Connection -> Properties -> "This Connections uses the following items" dialog -> Check "Client for Microsoft Networks".

Prior this, I could ping both computers each way via cmd ping. but only the Windows 7 would allow me to get to the XP folders.

I still couldn't "see" the Win 7 Machines nor folders

Consider Name Resolution

I had this problem with fresh new Windows 7 PC.

XP machine had media server running and that worked. From Windows & machine I could browse all the media on the XP box no problem.

Despite having same username/password on each PC and same workgroup neither PC could see the other on the network.

Pings worked using IP addresses e.g.
Ping 10.0.0.9 worked from Windows 7 (to XP)
and
PING 10.0.0.14 worked from Windows XP (to Windows 7)
but
Ping XPBOX failed

My solution (as not running DNS on the network) was to edit the hosts file on the Windows 7 machine to add an entry like
10.0.0.16 W7BOX
The problem here is saving the changes.
You need to right click and select 'Run as Administrator' for notepad.exe even if you are an administrator!

This fixed the problem for me.

PS
hosts file in located in
c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc
and must not have any kind of extension (i.e it is 'hosts' not 'hosts.txt' etc)

workaround sort of

I couldn't get my XP to connect to my W7 until I tried the following sequence:
My Network Places/
View Workgroup Computers/
(right click on computer name) Open/
(same for) Users/
Documents/
"yournamefolder".
I had previously shared the folder, the My Documents and the Drive but none of those let me in directly until I did the above. Good luck. I've been working on this since 10 this morning and it's now 5:30; that's seven and a half hours.

Same problem-Solved

I had the same problems. win 7 couldn't see win xp and vice versa. I turned off the firewall on the win 7 machine and presto-i could see the win xp machine. I thought i turned off the firewall in the win xp machine but apparently i did not. i went to the wireless connections page and right clicked my wireless connection and turned off the firewall option-presto. I can now see the win 7 machine. Why does microsoft do this? if all computers are on the same workgroup, there should be firewall exceptions.

Workgroup settings

This thread is old, but it's worth mentioning that I solved the same (apparent) issues by making sure both machines had the same workgroup name. I did this by running the home networking setup wizard on the XP machine and setting it to the same as the Win7 (right-click on Computer on the Win 7 machine and choose properties, this will bring up panel with info, somewhere near bottom is Workgroup name). The win7 shared folders showed up not long after i'd changed the workgroup name from MSHOME (the default on mine) on my XP machine to the same as the Win7. Everything showed up after a while in the XP's network places.

Maybe this will help somebody trying to shift stuff from an old machine or something... good luck to any other weary searcher of the webs.