Windows 7: Accessing XP file shares from Windows 7

I'm going to start by providing all of the basics.

1. Computer Group "A" (Any Windows 7 PC, all running Professional), Computer Group "B" (Any Windows XP PC), and Computer Group "C" (Any Windows Vista PC) are all connected to the Internet and are on the same subnet.
2. All computers from group B can ping all computers from group C, and vice versa. They also can communicate through windows file sharing with absolutely no problem.
3. All computers from Group A absolutely will not see group B in the network list, and group A computers will not ping group B computers by host name. However, if I type in a known IP address for a computer in group B, this works fine. This same thing happens in reverse, (B to A).

Basically what I have seen so far is that Windows 7 is having problems accessing network shares from other OS's. I have literally tried almost every suggestion I have found about Windows 7/Windows XP file sharing to no avail.

• I have network discovery turned on for the Windows 7 machines.
• I have file and printer sharing turned on for the Windows 7 machines.
• I have enabled sharing for devices that use 40 or 56 bit encryption on the Windows 7 machines.
• I have tried turning off password protected sharing on the Windows 7 machines.
• I have also enabled "Use user accounts and passwords to connect to other computers."
• On the XP machines, I have disabled Simple File Sharing.
• I have tried clearing DNS caches and ARP tables.
• I have tried using nslookup to find a machine, to no avail.
• I have disabled all Windows and 3rd party firewalls on both groups.

In summary, file sharing works perfectly fine between XP and Vista machines. Windows 7 can access Vista machines. But Windows 7 cannot access XP machines. Thank you for your time and any help you have to offer.

Which is strange because I set up file sharing with my old XP machines countless times, even before Windows 7 was in the final build and it always worked perfectly for me.

I only needed to make sure they were using the same workgroup name then I ran the XP network connection wizard on the XP machines and went through the permission settings for the folders I wanted to share and all done. Sometimes you need to disable simple file sharing on XP pro machines but it looks like you have already tried that.

I think it's important to point out that just about any type of A/V software or third party firewalls can and will cause problems with sharing. You will either need to reconfigure the third party firewall or disable or even uninstall completely which ever A/V or third party firewall you are using. Don't blame me I'm just passing along the facts...

If it's just a set up problem the links below should be helpful.
Sharing files and printers with different versions of Windows - Help & How-to - Microsoft Windows

Networking home computers running different versions of Windows

Thanks for the reply. It's not a setup problem for sure, not only do I have almost a decade of IT experience, I have this working just fine on other networks. The computer groups absolutely do not have any type of firewall software installed. I don't even think this is so much of a sharing problem as is a networking related problem, I can't ping host names at all. Hopefully someone who has the same symptoms as I have had will be able to respond, for some reason way too many people have had problems networking Windows 7 and Windows XP computers.

If you can't even ping the other machines then something is blocking the connection or they aren't using a common default gateway, or maybe SMB file sharing isn't enabled. It might be worth while to do an ipconfig /all on those machines just to verify they are using the same default gateway.

Just to be clear, I can ping by IP address. They all have a default gateway of 192.168.0.99. Is it possible that an older router causes issues with all of this? As in, this router has been around since 2004-2005 and the router itself is probably older. I walked into this environment after it had been setup, the router came packaged with a local DSL provider and is certainly not a widespread device. I'm thinking about doing a quick swap of routers to see what happens on that end.

Yes I believe that the older router can cause this problem. It might be worth while to find an updated firmware for it. Or testing with another router would really narrow it down, good idea.

If you are able to ping using the IP, but not able to ping using the FQDN then it is probably a ARP issue and is caused by the DNS server not being refreshed frequently enough. Try accessing the shared folder using the IP instead of the system name, followed by the share name. Example: \\192.168.1.1\share

I wasn't very clear in my initial post, while I said I can ping by IP, I failed to mention I can also access shares using the IP address. I am having to specify IP addresses to access shares, and because this a fairly large network (as far as small business, 20+ computers) it isn't practical for me to set static addresses on all of the computers. If I had control of the router (locked down by the ISP, I have no ability to login) I could force automatic assignments in a certain range, and have left overs for static addresses. This will all be sorted out as soon as I can get the organization to get the ball rolling on converting to Comcast business class. Then I will be able to use whatever router I like. Thanks for the help, I will post back when I test a second router.