Issue with homegroup

Hello

I have been having issues with networking with windows 7 between two home computers. One is a desktop and is connected with a wire, and the other is a laptop, connected wirelessly. What I have been attempting is to stream media from an external hard drive from the desktop to the laptop

I followed all the proper steps in creating the homegroup (Both computers are under default Windows 7 settings) and from the laptop I can access the desktop to a certain extent. I have chosen what i wanted to share and can stream it with Windows Media Player.

The problem is, I can not access my laptop from my desktop, even though both are configured exactly the same, and the homegroup periodically loses connection after around an hour or so of streaming media. In order to reset the connection, I have to either wait a good 15 minutes for it to somehow repair itself or go as far as to restart both computers.

It doesnt even matter to me altogether whether i can access the laptop or not, I'm just frustrated with the amount of effort it takes to simply maintain a constant connection between the two.

How can i fix this?

(on a side note, if it matters, the desktop is 32-bit and the laptop is 64-bit)

Thanks

Hello Delhaise

Which A/V software do you have installed? Are you using any type of third party firewall?

McAfee on the laptop, i dont have A/V software yet on the desktop, besides what windows 7 provides. Windows firewall for both

Did you say "Gulp" McAfee? This A/V tends to cause endless problems with sharing which is why it was the first question I asked.

You can either try to configure McAfee to work with Windows 7 sharing or uninstall it completely from the system it's installed on which will most likely fix the problem. :)

Ahh thanks a lot. It was the software that came with the laptop, i assumed it was good.

In your opinion, what is the best kind of A/V software? I've been looking around and i cant seem to find any good ones.

I'll try uninstalling it and i'll get back with the results - thanks again.

I would go with MSE "microsoft security essentials" it's free. It's one of the few that doesn't seem to cause problems with sharing.

http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

And yes the so called free bloat ware that comes with every PC sold causes nothing but problems. I would take some time to make sure they are all removed from your laptop and then get the required Windows updates.

New development to the problem.

I dont quite know what happened, but it now appears that I can not see any of the computers connected to my router, from any computer. They all have the same Workgroup name, so I dont entirely know what went wrong from before.

Any ideas? Windows 7's "easy networking" is proving to be more of a hassle than anything.