Windows 7: Download probs from XP to Win 7

I have an incredibly wierd issue with file sharing from a win xp Home SP3 machine and my brand new Vaio laptop.

The laptop is wirelessly connected via an oldish Netgear Dg834 wifi router, whilst the XP desktop is connected to an ethernet port on this router.

The problem I am having is that whilst I can easily see all of the shared folders on the XP machine all of the time, when I try to download a folder of files such as MP3 or pictures, the download starts okay at say 1mbyte/sec. The speed then decreases and decreases until it is down to a few Kbytes/sec and then eventually I get an error message saying do I want to retry accessing a particular file.

The download 'stalls' randomly and not on any particular file or folder.

I am stumped by this, I have done and checked all of the usual things to do with workgroups and firewall etc etc.

I am now wondering if my old wifi router is not compliant with win 7 in some way. When I had an XP laptop, file sharing in this way was no problem.

Also, internet access on both machines is smokin hot.

Has anyone else come across such an issue or have any advice ?

Welcome to the forum,

Your DG834G is fully compatible with Windows 7. This could be a driver problem from what I'm reading here. Which brand make and model is your Windows 7 laptop?

You should make sure that you are using the same Workgroup name on both machines.
XP home sets MSHOME as the default Workgroup location where Windows 7 uses Workgroup name for Workgroup by default. This can cause many problems with sharing unless both Workgroups use the same name.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/com...834G&os=32-bit

I used to have the same problem with hard disks (two of them on the same pc), i installed win 7 pro 64-bit, and problem gone.

My Windows 7 PC is a Sony Vaio NW20 EF Laptop with an Atheros AR928x wifi adapter Intel 4300 processor 3 gig RAM and 320 Meg HDD. As far as I know all updates are in place on the machine for Win 7 and the networks adapters.

I use the same workgroup and homegroup names as you suggest.

You mentioned a Homegroup name? In case you didn't realize it, Homegroups is a
Windows 7 networking feature only. You can't use Homegroups with any other type of Op system. Did you inadvertantly set up a Homegroup on the Win 7 machine?

If you set up a Homegroup on the Windows 7 machine that could cause the types of problems you are describing. It's hard to say with your slow transfer speed what the problem might be exactly but that could be part of it.

I have become aware of the Homegroups issue and have removed my in 7 laptop from any Hoegroups. The situation now is that I can see all of the shared folders on the XP desktop, and printer sharing with the printer attached to the XP desktop works okay.

However, when I try to download any significant amount of data from any of the shared folders on the XP machine, the download starts okay at say 750Kbytes/sec and when say 2/3 of the data is downloaded the speed just drops off and eventually 'stalls' producing an error message to the effect of 'file not accessible'.

I am stumped by this, anyone else got nay new ideas ?

I'm I missing something here, or by downloading you mean file transfer? I
Could u be having permission issues?

I cant see how this could be the case, as the ile transfer starts okay. For example, lets say Iwant to copya folder with 12 MP3 fies fromthe XP machine to the Win 7 laptop the fist 7 or 8 of the files will rip across at high speed but then the procss will just stall leaving the final files innaccesible.

Other than MP3 files, would you have the same issue if you were to transfer normal files...try files with considerable sizes.

I've tried all sorts of files on the long-shot hunch that it may be MP3 compression that was causing the problem, but it is always the same.