Can Open XP share from 7 but Cannot Open XP share from 7

There are many threads here with problems similar to this one but I havent found one this confounding. 3 computers on the network. Two XP Pro SP3 machines and one Windows 7 Home Premium machine. Call the XP boxes XPa and XPb. I cannot access shares on XPa from 7 but have no problem accessing shares on XPb. Same username and password on all 3 machines, all are admins on respective computers.

From 7 to XPa, it asks for username/pw, enter it and access denied.
From 7 to XPb, it asks for nothing, can open XPb shares without problem.

From XPa to 7 it asks for nothing, can open 7 shares without problem.
From XPb to 7 it asks for nothing, can open 7 shares without problem.

From XPa to XPb it asks for nothing, can open XPb shares without problem.
From XPb to XPa it opens a 'connecting to' window with the username grayed out which is XPa\guest. But when opening a mapped drive from XPb to XPa, it asks for credentials for \\XPa\share. Once again, I use the only username/password combo there is without success. I compared the local computer security settings on both XP boxes but did not see any differences.

Accessing XPa shares from 7 is what I really want to do. The rest I included to provide all the pieces.

It may help to use a different user name on the Windows 7 machine. You can also try adjusting the account access from classic to guest on the Win 7 machine, this has been known to fix the password prompt problem.

Goto... Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Local Security Policy > Local Policies > Security Options

Scroll down to... Network Access: Sharing and security model for local accounts

Select... Guest only and not Classic. I checked on XP machine and Guest seems to be the default.

Huh. There is no Local Security Policy in Control Panel > Administrative Tools. I tried another user who is an admin on the 7 machine, same result

squidgy said:

Huh. There is no Local Security Policy in Control Panel > Administrative Tools. I tried another user who is an admin on the 7 machine, same result

I think thats because you have Windows 7 home premium rather than pro or ultimate. Most likely which ever A/V software you have installed is causing the problem.

I set up sharing with my old XP machines no less than twenty times and never had a single problem getting the shares to work. All I had to do with make sure they were all using the same workgroup name and then ran the network set up wizard on the XP machines.

I never needed to use the same User names or passwords, In fact using the same User name only causes problems with Windows 7 and seems to make it so one of the machines not show up.

Maybe some of the fixes in the Technet threads below will help.
Getting Access is Denied when accessing Windows 7 share from Windows XP

Sharing files and printers with different versions of Windows - Help & How-to - Microsoft Windows

Getting Access is Denied when accessing Windows 7 share from Windows XP

Accessing 7 shares from XP works. The problem is accessing XP shares from 7. I turned off the AV on both machines, The 7 settings jive with "sharing files and printers with different versions of Windows", I even used the network setup wizard on XP. 7 still asks for the network password. Ugh

unsecured share: add the everyone group with full permissions.
secured share: create local account and use that account to access the share

I turned off simple file sharing on XPa. Now, no problem accessing it's shares from 7. Hooray!

On XPb, simple file sharing has always been on and 7 could access it's shares.

From XPb to XPa, it still asked for a password, but the username/password fields were empty and not grayed out. I used the username/password that is the same on all 3 machines and got access to XPa (of course its hard to tell which machine's username and password it was)

Why was 7 asking for a password from a user in the 7 domain? Isnt the password the remote machine's password?

squidgy said:

I turned off simple file sharing on XPa. Now, no problem accessing it's shares from 7.

Thanks. I had this very problem until reading this. Always had to use XP to copy to Win7. On Win7, was never able to open folders on XPSp3... could seem them, just couldn't open and use them.