Win7 laptop on XP workgroup

[jonmitch]

Hello everyone.

Apologies if this is a simple one that has been answered before, but I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

I have a lovely new work laptop running Windows 7 Ultimate. It is set up as a Domain pc.

I have a home network with a number of PCs (Win XP) and a couple of Macs, all connecting via a workgroup.

With my old work laptop (also XP) I simply did "Start", "Run", then typed in "PCName\c$" (where "PCName" is the name of my main home PC). This no longer works from my new work laptop (Win 7).

So, any thoughts ? Is this possible, or have I fallen foul of the MS upgrade path ?

Thanks for any help or advice,

Jon

 

[RedBirdDad]

Welcome to Seven Forums!

It looks like you want to get the W7 machine up on the workgroup.

It's actually pretty easy. There's a tutorial for it here at Seven Forums.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/51711-workgroup-name-view-change.html?filter[2]=Networking%20Internet

Give this a try and let us know how it went.

Good Luck!

 

[jonmitch]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. Sadly, the Win 7 machine is on a domain (my work domain), and the tutorial states that the Win 7 machine will be permanently removed from the domain when I add it to a workgroup.

Or have I missed something ?

Thanks,

Jon

 

[chev65]

This tutorial will help you join your Windows 7 machine to your existing Domain.
I believe that joining a Domain works better if you are running Win 7, Ultimate, Professional or Enterprize.
Connect your computer to a domain

 

[RedBirdDad]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. Sadly, the Win 7 machine is on a domain (my work domain), and the tutorial states that the Win 7 machine will be permanently removed from the domain when I add it to a workgroup.

Or have I missed something ?

Thanks,

Jon

Domains, ok. That does present a challenge. Are you looking to share a folder on the workgroup?

 

[RedBirdDad]

This tutorial will help you join your Windows 7 machine to your existing Domain.
I believe that joining a Domain works better if you are running Win 7, Ultimate, Professional or Enterprize.
Connect your computer to a domain

He's already on a domain at work. He wants to access his home network which is a workgroup. Unfortunately you can't be a member of both.

 

[jonmitch]

Hi,

Yes - Laptop is set up for my work domain. My home PCs are all on a Workgroup.

Main aim is to be able to browse the PCs (and Mac) on my home Workgroup from my work laptop, without removing the work laptop from the work domain.

I had a feeling this was going to be a tricky one ....

Thanks again for any and all help & advice. I can't believe I am the only one in this situation ?

Jon

 

[surfasb]

The easist way to do this is to address your home computers by IP address.

\\IP address\Share Name

To address them by name will take a bit more work. Your computer is part of a domain, so by default, Windows appends the domain name to the end of UNCs. Like if your work domain is Cubicle.net, then when you type \\HomeCompy\Share, you'll get

\\HomeCompy.Cubicle.net\Share

 

[chev65]

Yes that would present some problems I agree. The easy way would be to create another partition on your HDD for Win 7. One set up for the workplace domain, the other set up for the Workgroup at home.

This statement comes directly from the pros at TechNet.
The only way to do that with a single machine would be to dual boot the operating system. Have you considered using RDC or VNC to connect to a non-domain machine and use it for this purpose?

Hal
If you don't want any connection or sharing problems I would follow Hal's advice.
http://social.answers.microsoft.com...k/thread/193ba94a-1962-41b5-9bbb-8a454e93d8ff

 

[jonmitch]

Hi,

Well, that didn't work for c$ - eg: \\PCName\c$

Does that little back-door no longer work from Win7 ?

Thanks,

Jon

 

[RedBirdDad]

You're running Ultimate so you might want to try Windows Virtual PC. That will see the workgroup just fine and you can give it access to the local drives.

 

[surfasb]

Hi,

Well, that didn't work for c$ - eg: \\PCName\c$

Does that little back-door no longer work from Win7 ?

Thanks,

Jon

By default, those hidden shares are blocked except for system services.

Try it with the IP address, per my above post.

 

[jonmitch]

OK - apologies for being clueless. 2 things working against me.

1) I have dynamic IP on the main home pc - and was using an old IP address.
2) the "C$" shortcut that worked on XP to give me access to the whole drive does not work.

Apart from that, I have successfully managed to connect to one of my shares.

Now to set static IP on the main home PCs & Macs .....

Thanks for the help so far, and I will report back on how well this goes.

Jon

 

[RedBirdDad]

OK - apologies for being clueless. 2 things working against me.

1) I have dynamic IP on the main home pc - and was using an old IP address.
2) the "C$" shortcut that worked on XP to give me access to the whole drive does not work.

Apart from that, I have successfully managed to connect to one of my shares.

Now to set static IP on the main home PCs & Macs .....

Thanks for the help so far, and I will report back on how well this goes.

Jon

You may still be able to use the \\PCName. If you share the drive on the XP machine give it a share name. Then use the \\PCName\sharename instead of the C$.

 

[surfasb]

Yeah, unfortunately, there isn't another way to get around this, AFAIK.

edit:

OK - apologies for being clueless. 2 things working against me.

1) I have dynamic IP on the main home pc - and was using an old IP address.
2) the "C$" shortcut that worked on XP to give me access to the whole drive does not work.

Apart from that, I have successfully managed to connect to one of my shares.

Now to set static IP on the main home PCs & Macs .....

Thanks for the help so far, and I will report back on how well this goes.

Jon

You may still be able to use the \\PCName. If you share the drive on the XP machine give it a share name. Then use the \\PCName\sharename instead of the C$.

Yeah, I think we addressed this earlier. Because he's part of a domain, Windows will append the domain to the PCNAME every time, which is why it won't work. While you can turn it off, it will screw with his day at work. Or his admin can simply override his changes as soon as he logs in at work.

 

[RedBirdDad]

Yeah, unfortunately, there isn't another way to get around this, AFAIK.

edit:

OK - apologies for being clueless. 2 things working against me.

1) I have dynamic IP on the main home pc - and was using an old IP address.
2) the "C$" shortcut that worked on XP to give me access to the whole drive does not work.

Apart from that, I have successfully managed to connect to one of my shares.

Now to set static IP on the main home PCs & Macs .....

Thanks for the help so far, and I will report back on how well this goes.

Jon

You may still be able to use the \\PCName. If you share the drive on the XP machine give it a share name. Then use the \\PCName\sharename instead of the C$.

Yeah, I think we addressed this earlier. Because he's part of a domain, Windows will append the domain to the PCNAME every time, which is why it won't work. While you can turn it off, it will screw with his day at work. Or his admin can simply override his changes as soon as he logs in at work.

Must be something new in W7. I used to do this on my work XP laptop. It's on a domain but was still able to access shares on my home workgroup that way. Oh well.

 

[surfasb]

Yeah, unfortunately, there isn't another way to get around this, AFAIK.

edit:

You may still be able to use the \\PCName. If you share the drive on the XP machine give it a share name. Then use the \\PCName\sharename instead of the C$.

Yeah, I think we addressed this earlier. Because he's part of a domain, Windows will append the domain to the PCNAME every time, which is why it won't work. While you can turn it off, it will screw with his day at work. Or his admin can simply override his changes as soon as he logs in at work.

Must be something new in W7. I used to do this on my work XP laptop. It's on a domain but was still able to access shares on my home workgroup that way. Oh well.

It's not new to Windows 7. You are just lucky me thinks.

 

[RedBirdDad]

]

It's not new to Windows 7. You are just lucky me thinks.

Guess what: It *does* work. If he opens windows explorer and types "\\PCName\SHARE NAME" in the address bar it will access the drive on the workgroup.

I just did with my work laptop which is on a domain.

You can't browse though. It won't show up in the network. But you can access it directly.

I knew I'd done this before. Old age hasn't rattled my brain too much yet.

 

[surfasb]

It's worth another try. I figured he's tried it before, but apparently it was trying to access the hidden share.

 

[Barman58]

As has been said the old root level shares are not available in windows 7 for security reasons. If you have to access the root of the drive concerned you should be able to re-share the root of a drive manually on your XP machines (use advanced sharing).

I do this quite often and just share the drive under a suitable name - my D: drive is shared under DATA for example.

If possible it is always better if you can share at a lower level that would restrict any potential unauthorised access issues