Windows 7: XP to 7 Networking

I set up my 7 machine on an XP network. The 7 machine sees the shared folders, and I can get to them with no problem. When I try to look at the 7 machine from the XP side, it asks for a user name and password. I never set one up, because I would like to run an open network. (I live a mile down a limerock road with no close neighbors.) Can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong?




Why in the world did Microsoft change the default network name?

Nothing, but you should be able to allow public access through Network and sharing center. Click on "change advanced sharing settings".

XP and Windows 7 and Vista work differently in regards to networking and sharing. I suggest you give the Windows 7 user a password and then access it from the xp computer using that username and password. If you don't want to use that account, then create an account with a password on the Windows 7,and then use that to connect.

Didn't cbleman state that he wanted to use open network, i.e. no username and passwords?

Enable the "Guest" account on the Windows 7 box and give that user full acess to the shared folders?

I believe that Guest is disabled by default. Either that or give "Everyone" full acess to the shared folders. I got this working at home quickly, though now I can;t remember which method I used...

+Rep for fseal

that's probably the easiest way to allow anonymous access. I can't believe Microsoft still hasn't made this easy enough for novice users. The network and sharing center is still missing some valuable configuration options such as "ForceGuest", "EveryoneIncludesAnonymous", "RestrictAnonymous", "LimitBlankPasswordUse" settings...

You still have to access the registry and/or Local security policy to tweak them (which nobody except for advanced users knows how to do...)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa

My apologies for missing that. This is how I resolved my issue with that in the past.
Download the following and install it
Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=4544
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.
Kudos to fseal, and thanks to sup3rsprt for catching that for me.

Thanks for all the input. As someone suggested my problem was buried under advanced settings several layers down. It wasn't easy to find.

Right clicked on network - Choose home Group and Sharing Options - Advanced Sharing Settings - Turn OFF password Protected Sharing

Since I never set up a username or Password I never would have gotten in. I hope this helps someone else.

Thanks again for the input.

BTB: My network is WEP encrypted. I figure If you have gotten my Key, you deserve to be there. All the computers in the house (3) talk freely to each other so we can pass files and notes to shared folders.