Win 7 - homegroup goes intercontinental

Hi all,

This may have happened to others but I can't seem to find any similar hits. I set up Windows 7 as a home group with Vista and several XP computers. I followed the instructions on MS website. All good.

What is not so good is that moving files from windows 7 to the vista machine (running media centre) is very slow. Did pings and tracert and found that I am going across to a site in San Antonio US. I'm in Melbourne Australia! I get approx 10 mbps over a 54 mbps wireless and 11 mbps adsl2 environment. (BTW an impressive speed for going across the pacific).

I can see the shared directories on the other PCs in explorer. File transfers do work - just very slowly. Pinging the computer name gives me a round trip of 230 ms.

If I ping the automically assigned ip's I get 1 ms response. All the computer's assigned ip addresses are 192.168.1.* and the subnet mask is 255.255.255.0.

The ip of the site I go to is 204.232.162.158. Oddly all computers in my home group give the same ip when I ping them by name.

The router is Dynalink RTA 1025W. It does not support IPv6 whilst 7 homegroup uses IPv6. likely problem? How can I prove that? Any other thoughts? Should I ditch home groups and set up a traditional network?

rawvid said:

Hi all,

This may have happened to others but I can't seem to find any similar hits. I set up Windows 7 as a home group with Vista and several XP computers. I followed the instructions on MS website. All good.

What is not so good is that moving files from windows 7 to the vista machine (running media centre) is very slow. Did pings and tracert and found that I am going across to a site in San Antonio US. I'm in Melbourne Australia! I get approx 10 mbps over a 54 mbps wireless and 11 mbps adsl2 environment. (BTW an impressive speed for going across the pacific).

I can see the shared directories on the other PCs in explorer. File transfers do work - just very slowly. Pinging the computer name gives me a round trip of 230 ms.

If I ping the automically assigned ip's I get 1 ms response. All the computer's assigned ip addresses are 192.168.1.* and the subnet mask is 255.255.255.0.

The ip of the site I go to is 204.232.162.158. Oddly all computers in my home group give the same ip when I ping them by name.

The router is Dynalink RTA 1025W. It does not support IPv6 whilst 7 homegroup uses IPv6. likely problem? How can I prove that? Any other thoughts? Should I ditch home groups and set up a traditional network?

HI and welcome

1-Homegroup is primarily designed for IPv6 and win 7 machines only. On some systems it can have connectivity issues like the ones you describe.

Since your router doesnt support IPv6 it is the likely source of the problem. To verify that simply set up a new network connection using workgroup instead of homegroup.

2- 230 Ms Ping is not at all unusual for an AU site. The reason you are geting 1Ms pings is that they are local machines and therefor very fast.

Let us know if you need help with any of this


Ken

Thanks Ken. I'll try a work group.

I don't mind 230 pings when I am visiting a us site (physically it is 140 ms across the pacific according to Southern Cross Cables). I do mind 230 ms pings to the otherside of my desk!

Homegroups is only for a LAN "local area network" set up and will not work correctly in any other type of network arrangement. it's also not made to work with a Domain or with a VPN or with any type of OP system other than Windows 7. :)