now just a big homegroup/network mess

[a noid]

Homegroup. I used to have a Homegroup working perfectly. then i had really slow speeds only 1 mbps. so, i heard someone saying that mapping network drives would be better. so i mapped a network drive. it was not better. now unfortunately, i can't even move on to trying to handle my 1mbps sluggish almost unnusable speed accross my N network, because my homegroup is not even working properly.

now, when i go to right click to share a folder, i only get "advanced Sharing" when i choose "share with..." i don't have the whole list with homegroup read, homegroup read/write and all that.

I've also developed a bunch of locks on a bunch of folders i'd like to have removed, i assume these things are related. i think it was mapping the drive that took possession of folders or something and i'd like to undo that.


is there some kind of simple way i can just go back to the way it all was in the beginning? I don't really want to reformat my computers. but i'll tell you what... i'm not far off from that point.

if someone could help me, you'd really have made my day. i've been looking for solutions to things like this, and other people seem to have similar problems and questions, but i haven't found any solutions really.


oh ya, and one more thing, i'm not sure if this is related or if the solution can be similar, but i also can only log on remote desktop from my desktop computer to my laptop, whereas once upon a time i could go both ways, and really the only direction that matters to me is the other way. both my computers are password protected and have administrator rights. i get error asking me to make sure other computer accepts remote connections and is on and everything and it all checks out. i tried a couple of things, turning it on and off, and nothing.

again, any help would be hugely appreciated.

 

[Sub Styler]

See if there is a system restore point from just before you made the unwanted changes.

If you are new to system restore Brink has written an impressive guide here:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/700-system-restore.html

 

[a noid]

See if there is a system restore point from just before you made the unwanted changes.

If you are new to system restore Brink has written an impressive guide here:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/700-system-restore.html

i don't remember when would be a good time to system restore from, and the problems all happened in steps so it would be a while back, i don't think i can restore that far back. i'm not sure how bad i want to do that anymore though, because i can just see folders i've shared on my network under network rather than homegroup. i think i prefer that. not sure really what extra homegroup was bringing to the table, but i found that sometimes it required a refresh and you had to go through some troubleshoot steps to get to a refresh, which kind of sucked. right now i can read and write shared folders on my network under network rather than homegroup, so i think i'm fine with that. folders still have lock icons, but i think i could just repossess them one at a time if ever it really got to me.

i'm still getting really slow transfer speeds. it's always been like that. all my computers are N, my router is N. i don't get it. i'm only getting at most 1.3mbps. that's when it's fast. it's crazy, i should be going much faster than that even on g. that was the original issue i was trying to solve before all this happened. and it's still not working. what could be slowing me down?

maybe i should specify, i'm writing to an external drive, but it's hooked up via eSATA but even if it was USB 2 it should be faster.

 

[Sub Styler]

Firstly the remote desktop issue may be caused by a simple setting on your laptop: System Properties> Remote Tab, check to make sure remote connections are enabled and to whom they are allowed.

I wouldnt worry about the lock overlay on folder icons too much, admin accounts will still normally have full access to these files.

For your slow network speeds it could be any number of things from firewalls or other security packages causing delays to a badly configured router. There may be a firmware update available for your router. Sometime routers just need 5mins downtime to cool off. When convenient try the age old techno trick of turning it off for a bit then turning it off again (although you probably have). Is the slow speed specificly when accessing that drive or for all network traffic? another cause could be a corrupted TCPIP stack or winsock catalog.

The winsock cataloge is easily cleared:

in the start menu type "netsh reset winsock catalog" without quotes and restart the machne.

You may also be infected with malware. Have you recently tried a Malware Bytes scan?

 

[a noid]

Firstly the remote desktop issue may be caused by a simple setting on your laptop: System Properties> Remote Tab, check to make sure remote connections are enabled and to whom they are allowed.

I wouldnt worry about the lock overlay on folder icons too much, admin accounts will still normally have full access to these files.

For your slow network speeds it could be any number of things from firewalls or other security packages causing delays to a badly configured router. There may be a firmware update available for your router. Sometime routers just need 5mins downtime to cool off. When convenient try the age old techno trick of turning it off for a bit then turning it off again (although you probably have). Is the slow speed specificly when accessing that drive or for all network traffic? another cause could be a corrupted TCPIP stack or winsock catalog.

The winsock cataloge is easily cleared:

in the start menu type "netsh reset winsock catalog" without quotes and restart the machne.

You may also be infected with malware. Have you recently tried a Malware Bytes scan?

checked settings, found workaround with teamviewer. have restarted router a bazillion times. one computer is new, and other recently reformatted. protected with hosts file and noscript add-on for firefox, so i don't get much malware anyways.

tried the reset thing, have yet to restart computer, i don't have much faith on the solution though. last i checked the slow transfers were on all drives in both directions, but have not checked recently, only reshared external drive so far.

this is the main problem i'd like to solve though, if i could solve that, then that would be sweet. router should be configured correctly. it is new, have not checked for firmware updates, but my internet transfers more quickly than sharing to other computers on network. doubt it is router anyways because i had this same issue with older g router. i got an N one because i thought maybe it could be router, didn't want to mess with it and wanted as fast as i could get transfer rates anyways. could potentially be windows firewall, have not disabled it to try. both routers were of same manufacture, so there's a small chance it could be some default setting on linksys routers, on their firewall perhaps, but i doubt it. not sure what it could be but any ideas are hugely welcomed.

 

[a noid]

any ideas? if it's say firewalls, is there somehow a setting i could change that would make sure this traffic i want is happening? or some way i can force fast connectivity in my router settings?

I really only want to update the firmware of my router as a last resort. i've never come across router firmware problems and i think it's a long shot. maybe if it was an older router i'd be more hopeful of the idea, but it's a brand new model that has only existed a while after all computers were sold 64bit windows 7.

or any ideas on how i could troubleshoot and isolate the problem? maybe some way to ping my router or something, to see if it's slow from one computer only?

maybe it's my wireless card? but what i don't get is i can get much faster speeds on internet, so i feel like it's somehow some port or some sort of path that networking takes that has a slow down in it. that's why it feels to me like there potentially could be some sort of firewall thing maybe, or idk.

this is killing me.


damn you windows (shaking fist).

 

[a noid]

bump, no other more specific ideas on what could be causing a slow 1mbps network connection between computers, but fast through to internet when all network adapters are N?

 

[a noid]

ok, well aside from updating the firmware, what sorts of options should i look for in my router. is there a way, to do some sort of similar thing to port forwarding, but into other ocmputers? i feel like it's something like this.

tried disabling windows firewall on both machines. didn't help.