sharing between xp and windows 7 machines

porps · 16 Feb 2010

Hi. So i have a small wireless network in my home, an xp machine and a windows 7 machine. However the 2 can't see each other. I tried to set up printer and file sharing but the xp machine gives me an error (a problem has occured bla bla), nothing specific. both computers show as the only computer connected to their workgroup. really dont know what im doing wrong. I'm able to share files from my windows 7 pc to the ps3 media centre no problems which is why i presume it's a setup problem on the XP machine. If anyone has the time and inclination to give me a step by step guide to getting it all linked up that would be greatly apprieciated as i really do need printer access from this machine. Sorry for being such a newb.

aem · 17 Feb 2010

You have Xp and W7, so Homegroup visibility/connectivity is non existing.

If you want to share files, just make sure the machines can ping one another.

Here is the sharing tut...but yeh you first need to make sure both machines can ping one another.

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

chev65 · 17 Feb 2010

Hello porps,

Try going through this tutorial about sharing with XP, click on the XP tab, it should help.
Sharing files and printers with different versions of Windows - Help & How-to - Microsoft Windows

This one is more general but has good info.
Networking home computers running different versions of Windows

It can also help to get around password problems if you use the same username and password on all machines in the LAN.

After going through all of that if you are still having file access problems try doing this registry adjustment on the Win 7 machine with the problem.

Solution is really easy just modify one key in registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
create or modify 32-bit DWORD: LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy
set the value to: 1

porps · 19 Feb 2010

hi again, thanks for the replies.
I cant ping the xp machine from the windows 7 machine, however i can now see and access the shared folders on my windows 7 machine from the xp machine, but not the other way round.

I've been in to my router setup and forwarded the ports described in that guide but im not sure wether the server ip address for thr forwarded ports should be the win 7 computer or the win xp one, or both (it doesnt seem to help no matter which i try)

Windows firewall is off and no additional software firewall is installed on either machine.

(btw, the xp machine is the one with the printer attached)