STILL cannot see Win7 from XP and XP from Win7

[rdettwyler]

I have followed so many of these threads and nothing has helped. From my XP, I see two other XPs and one MAC. From my two Win7 PCs, I see only Win7. All belong to same Workgroup, none of Win7 have HomeGroup, all Win7 have Advanced Sharing settings enabled, firewalls turned off. Any suggestions would be helpful. This sucks.

Thanks,
Rick

 

[Darryl Licht]

Sorry you are having issues! Welcome to the forum!

Setting shares between Win7 and XP can be a pain! But I manage 7 such networks, so lets see what we can do to get you going.

Can you please take a look at this tutorial: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/53830-file-sharing-between-xp-w7-vice-versa.html

Is everything set as this tut shows?

Are you using static IP's, or are they assigned by the DHCP in your router? Can you ping?

Please get back with me on this...

 

[rdettwyler]

HI Darryl. Everything is done as in the tutorial. I have a printer to share, which resides on a Win7. My XPs see each other but not the Win7s nor the printer. The Win7 only sees itself. The IPs are all static and I can ping in all directions..

 

[Darryl Licht]

Can you see the devices in the network map?

 

[rdettwyler]

No.

 

[MilesAhead]

No.

Are we talking wired network?

I've never done wireless so I won't comment on any of those.
But if we're talking wired the only thing that would work for me mixing W7,Vista and XP was to go into Vista and W7 network wizard thingie and tell it that the network is private. Otherwise it will force you to log in every time you try to map a network drive.

The printer issue can depend quite a bit on the printer. I have Epson C88+ printer. At the time I was trying to share it between XP and Vista there was no Windows7. There is not downloadable driver. When you plug into the USB the driver loads from firmware. It's a Vista driver. So the only way it would share correctly is plugged into the Vista machine. Plugged into XP would not work no way no how. Fortunately my set up is tight so the wires reach.

If you can plug your printer into either, once you have the shared folders problem solved, then try plugging into various machines. Check the manufacturer's site for different drivers.

More details would be good. Printer make and model etc.. Somebody with the same printer may have gotten around the problem.

 

[Beta]

Your Workgroup for xp is mostlikey "MSHOME" and Windows 7 is "WORKGROUP." Set the Windows 7 computers to "MSHOME" and restart as it will ask you to do. Then you should be able to see the other computers.

The settings listed above are the defult ones. So this should work as long as you have not changed the settings on xp.

 

[MilesAhead]

Also, don't ask me why, I found it helpful to just try to access the folders that were already shared first.

AllUsers on XP and Public on Vista/W7. For some reason, once I could access those, then I could set sharing on any folder. I could set it to Everyone and I could map a drive without getting the login prompt.

But most of this was set up when I had Vista before SP1. Some of these work-arounds may no longer be needed. Vista before SP1 was a weird beast.

The workgroup name has to be the same or nothin' will work. Why they feel compelled to change it when it ain't broken I have no clue. I set them all to MSHOME.

 

[rdettwyler]

As stated in my first post, all PCs are in same Workgroup. I have one Win7 and one XP on a wired network, same subnet, 102.168.2.54 and .55. They still cannot see each other in their respective network maps. If the PCs cannot see each other, I cannot see the printer, which is connected to Win7 and is shared. <sigh>

 

[Darryl Licht]

What folder(s) are you trying to share?

To share you should right click on the folder you want to share, select Properties. Then click on the Sharing Tab, select Advanced Sharing. Set the checkmark in Share this folder and set Permissions to Everyone... is that how you did it?

 

[rdettwyler]

Thank you all for your input, but you seem to have missed the point, which is this: XP cannot see Win7 computers and vice versa. Nada. Not at all. Nothing. Further, I have also mentioned that I shared a printer on the Win7, that cannot be seen on the XP, and did not mention anything about folders.

As we say in NY, "fugedaboudit!"

 

[Darryl Licht]

Sometimes you have to share something to see the other PC, sometimes we overlook the obvious, since you can ping, (you have connectivity)... Im trying to help you narrow down the possibilities.

 

[rdettwyler]

As stated in previous post, I shared a printer.

 

[Darryl Licht]

Try deleting and recreating the shared printer both on the host PC and on the clients... make sure sharing on host is set to everybody!

 

[rdettwyler]

I have recreated the printer three times on the host. It is shared so that everyone can print to it over the network. The printer cannot be added to the XP PC because the PC doesn't see it. I have tried to add it manually, as opposed to selecting it from a list of printers in the workgroup, as it doesn't appear in that list.

 

[rdettwyler]

It is now available on the XP. I added it by using the IP address of the host. XP still cannot see the Win7 PCs but at least I can print.

 

[MilesAhead]

Thank you all for your input, but you seem to have missed the point, which is this: XP cannot see Win7 computers and vice versa. Nada. Not at all. Nothing. Further, I have also mentioned that I shared a printer on the Win7, that cannot be seen on the XP, and did not mention anything about folders.

As we say in NY, "fugedaboudit!"

Did you set the Windows7 network as private? I don't think I miss the point at all. You won't get anything until you get the network set to the only configuration that's compatible across the OS gulf. That's the hassle. They changed how it is from XP.

In a bit of counter-intuitive parlance, MS makes the machines available to everyone if you set them as Private. If you set them as Public, nobody can see them. Got it?

 

[rdettwyler]

Do you mean Home, Work and Public? If so, then yes, Win7 is and has been set to Home network.

 

[aem]

What do you mean by "see" where are you looking in?

 

[MilesAhead]

Do you mean Home, Work and Public? If so, then yes, Win7 is and has been set to Home network.

Good luck man. I'm not going to be in the middle of soup here. Let me know when you fix it.