Windows 7: Simple file sharing between Win 7 and Win XP has become a Nightmare

I spent a couple of days over a year ago trying to get my windows 7 64 bit laptop to simple file share with my wife's win xp 32 bit. Since then, something happened.. don't really know what.. I think the cat looked at the laptop funny and that's all it took.

Both me and my wife's PC has had multiple repair installs on top of our systems. After her last repair install, the network stopped working. I have spent a month going over tutorials all over the net trying to get our network back. All I wanna do is simple file sharing between our computers. I'd see her drive in Network in Windows Explorer and drag and drop files between the two PC's.



I think I need to start over, from scratch and try to follow a better formula for getting this done. I'm to the point of overkill and now I'm just getting confused. I need to be sure everything on both computers is set up right.. and after that troubleshoot from there if it still doesn't work.

Can anyone provide me with the best tutorial link to get this done?

Thank you.

you didn't mention if you're hard wired or wireless...would be helpful to know that--and--if you are using a router (brand and model# would also be helpful).

see this link for a 'basic' setup (but ignore the part about IP address-depending on how your router is setup can conflict with a static IP)

File Sharing - Between XP and W7 (and vice versa)

please--post back with questions--it really isn't a hair pulling exercise--should be quite simple once I/we know your network configuration (i.e. router info).

I have wired and wireless. Modem/Router is a Netgear B90 ADSL2+Router ( same hardware as a Westell by another model number if I'm not mistaken)

which machine is wired? which is wireless? are you getting the internet on either or both machines?
and...just so I understand--you want to share at least 'one' specific folder on the XP machine (or the whole drive)?

Sorry for keeping you waiting.. i was trying that tutorial .. those two methods did not work.. I'll get back to that in my next post in a few minutes..

My win 7 laptop is both wired and wireless. the XP is only wired. In the past, i could connect to her win xp just fine using both wired or wireless. We get the internet on both machines, me using win 7 with both wired and wireless, and her win xp, using just the wired connection. The router has multiple ports and we both share it.

I actually don't want to share one folder.. but our entire drives and all folders with each other.. in the past, I got it so that i could see and read/write to all of her C drive but she could never read and write to all of my C drive - but we gave up on it and she didn't worry about getting into my drive. It was more important for me to get into her win xp drive, because her hard drive has the larger storage i used a folder under for personal storage space. I had a shortcut to this folder on my desktop, as well as a shortcut to her entire drive C.

Gimme a few minutes and I'll post what happened with the tutorials.

On the first method, i didn't get past step two. On typing the command to access the folder in the Run box, from win 7 it could not find the IP/ folder.

On the second method, I got down to the end and again with my two new test folders on both my PC and hers, they could not connect. On both methods, when trying to connect I get the error that says, " Error 0x800070035. the network path could not be found."

We do not have any firewalls enabled, nor do we have any anti-virus software installed.. i already made sure of those.

Oh.. btw.. currently.. we are both using wired.. I'm not going to throw wireless on my end into this until i can get wired working.

Why do you have to do the previously mentioned numerous repair installs? Do both machines typically run without firewall/antivirus?

No. Windows firewalls are both normally used. She normally uses an anti virus thats on demand, i only use malwarebytes when needed but I prefer to use sandboxie and watch what i download.

I did my repair install because EasyBCD messed up my bcd config somehow. She did her repair install because somehow her XP start menu was missing all the stuff on the right side - no My documents, My Pictures, My network places etc.. nothing on that side was visible.

I dont remember why we did other repair installs in the past, but those where the two resent reasons.

So specifically, what's the situation now? Both PCs can connect to the internet, yet neither machine can see the other? Can you ping each other?

Can you run the following on each machine?

What is Windows Defender Offline?

Note the bit difference of the downloads. It would be best if you could download and create them using known clean machines (I'm sure you're aware that SandboxIE has its shortcomings, it's not a perfect solution -- else you wouldn't find yourself occasionally running MWB).

BTW, you mention that she uses AV but only as on-demand? I'm not sure that's such a good idea (nor is the idea of relying on SandboxIE on its own). In my mind the worst, most effective malware is written so well you would never realize it's there. It does what it was written to do day in and day out and you would never know it until you look for it. More effective would be running the resident scanner and reducing the frequency of scans if you want. System response should barely be noticable while it's active.

I had a similar problem (but both are wired), and what I did is described here:

Cannot Connect Windows XP PC To My Windows 7