XP pc won't see workgroup and Win7 pc

I have read and read and read and tried so many things I've lost track. Now at the scream and pull my hair out stage of home networking.

I have created a workgroup on the win7 pc and 'opened' everything up as much as I know how (probably too much, might have made myself vulnerable). The only thing I have managed to do is the XP pc now sees a network connection called "secure". Can't click or right click or do anything but get a message that says "you don't have access to this network resource, contact the admin". It connects to the internet just fine, from the moment I started it up - didn't have to do anything. So, I know it has no problem going through the netgear router to the westell modem/router at the heart of the system. I have another XP pc connected to the same netgear router and it at least sees the shared directories and other pc's on the network, but also will not connect, giving the same message.

I need something new to try or a new resource to read or a brilliant idea from someone. BTW, both pc's running XP are that way because they HAVE to run XP (before anyone suggests going to Win7) for legacy app support.

The worst part is back in the win95 and on to the XP days I used to do this sort of thing all the time at work and home no problem. IMHO MS has made this unreasonably complicated.

OK, I did this and changed the WORKGROUP to MYNET. I have several drives and folders shared allowing full control, but now the XP doesn't see anything on the network. No 'SECURE', no 'MYNET', no 'MARK-PC'. Even tried searching the network for MARK-PC and the shared drives - nothing.

Well this is just rediculous. I have been at this for a total of 10 hours now and still neither box can see the other. What a PITA. Why is this so rediculously hard to do??

tried pinging by name from each to the other and no response.

Just "ping dellxp" and "ping mark-pc" - should one or both have worked?

bozian2 said:

OK, I did this and changed the WORKGROUP to MYNET. I have several drives and folders shared allowing full control, but now the XP doesn't see anything on the network. No 'SECURE', no 'MYNET', no 'MARK-PC'. Even tried searching the network for MARK-PC and the shared drives - nothing.

check xp local area connection settings set for client for microsoft networks

file and print sharing for microsoft networks are enabled

you could try the alternative connection and give the machine an ip address then ping it from your other machine

So the issue is that this will not work trying to go through the netgear router to the westell. (Even though it works fine for internet access.) If I plug directly into the westell then I have connectivity. The problem now is that due to only having 3 available ports on the westell, something has to give. The only thing I can 'pull' from the westell is my main printer, and now none of the pc's on the network can print to it - presumably due to the same reason why the xp pc couldn't comm. through it.

Does anybody have suggestions on how I can 'punch through' the netgear router?

And, apparently I got ahead of myself. While everything that I have shared on the network now shows in the list, I can't access any of it - "[destination] is not accessible. You might not have permission to use... access denied." Any win7 pc can access everything, the xp pc can't access anything.