Windows 7: Network Discovery and File Sharing working only with firewall off.

Hello,

I first noticed this problem this morning, I went to connect to my laptop via network sharing and I received the message "Network discovery and file sharing are turned off. Network computers and devices are not visible. Click to change..."

I tried clicking this to turn network discovery and file sharing on and the message goes away and comes back again within a second.

I opened the Network and Sharing Center / Change advanced sharing settings / Turned on network discovery and file and printer sharing / Clicked Save changes.

I went back and tried to connect to my networked laptop and still the same message is displayed stating that network discovery and file sharing are turned off. When I went back to the advanced sharing settings network discovery and file printer sharing were back off.

I did notice that if I turn Windows firewall off that I do not have any of these problems at all and under my network I can see both my modem/router and laptop.



If anyone could please help me with this problem I would be very grateful.

Ben.

Hi Ben, Read this File Sharing Set Up.pdf I did it on my 2 Windows 7 pc's and it works like a charm.

Hello George,

Thank you for your help with this, I have got my network set up very much the same as you have shown in your tutorial

I finally resolved this problem by resetting the Windows firewall back to default settings.

Long may it continue to work.