Windows 7: more homegroup issues

hi guys

i have two laptops i am trying to link using homegroup.

i have had several issues and overcome most of them so far, but i've got a new one.

by turning off my firewall i can now get one to recognise there is a homegroup and offers the "join" option. when i try to join, enter password, and nothing happens. it says it "cannot connect this laptop to homegroup" any ideas why this might be?

I can see and view my folders through my small network via router, but it would be nice to get homegroups up and running, before i add my other computers to win 7.

so far i have had to reset through safe mode to enable drives again.
i have enabled lots of network services, and i have disabled my firewall (i dont want this to be permenant obviously), oh and my clocks are spot on

Can the machines ping each other successfully?

how do you ping? i will have a try

Press Windows + R keys,type "cmd",a window will appear,type "ping xx.xxx.xxx"
where xx.xxx.xxx is other machine ip,for example ping 192.168.1.65!
Make a screenshot and upload it here!

both ping'd and both came back fine. one is avg 7ms other is avg 4ms

i wonder if its something to do with firewalls still. anyone else had something similar? where it tells you it cant connect "this" computer to homegroup?

So basically you have two laptops, both of them in the same workgroup eg 'HOME", and you can't access the files on one other via the same computers?

So when you go to My computer/Network you can see each other and access shared files each other?

In order for homegroups to work properly you need to first share libraries in both computers, however you do not need to share libraries in order to share file's.

For file sharing you just need to enable everything in the picture below.

everything is shared, and i mean everything.

they network, they are visible, everything is enabled in services menus, i can access through the network from all computers.

it is just that the homegroup wont setup. i've tried leaving and starting from scratch, along with having to reset user access to hard drives everytime you do that (that was a worry at first), but i cant seem to get them to do the home group thing. strange