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Windows 7 computer can't see other networked computers
I've been banging my head on the wall for several days on this one. I did a lot of searches and tried numerous suggestions, but have had no luck as of yet.
My Windows 7 Ultimate x64 machine recently stopped being able to communicate with any other machines on the network. It can ping them by name, but can't browse to any shared folders or use any shared services. I do have one networked printer, but access was via http so it seems to work. The big problem is that I have some Windows XP machines that have shared folders and shared printers and I can not access them.
Here are the details of my setup.
- Linksys WRT54G router drives the internet (updated to latest firmware)
- Windows 7 Ultimate x64 machine plugged directly into WRT54G ethernet port
- Epson Workforce printer plugged into ethernet port
- 2 Windows XP machines connected via wireless
- 1 Windows 7 32-bit laptop connected via wireless
Since the Epson worked fine I thought may it is a wireless issue or maybe an issue connecting from Windows 7 to Windows XP. I went through hundreds of forum posts about people with issues connecting to XP with no luck (i.e. network discovery is on, file/print sharing is enabled, all machines on the same Workgroup, etc.). All of the various XP machines can see each other, ping each other, and browse each other's shared folders. In fact, all of said machines are capable of browsing the Windows 7 64-bit machine's shared folders, but it can't browse theirs.
From the Windows 7 machine I can ping all of the others by IP or even by hostname, but if I put "\\hostname" in the run dialog, it can't make a connection. In the Network & Sharing Center I do see the other Windows 7 32-bit laptop in the network map, but I can't browse to it's shared folders. I can RDP this laptop by connecting to the IP address with remote desktop.
I can ping the XP machines by IP or name, but they do not show up at all in the network map and I can't browse to them from the run dialog.
A few months ago I could never access these machines by "\\hostname" but if I put in "\\IP_ADDRESS" it would pop up a username/password box and I could get in. This is now no longer working either.
Sorry for being long-winded on this. I just wanted to get all the details out there. Hopefully others have seen something like this. I've tried numerous things and from the firewall/network settings it seems like everything is set up to be able to discover other machines, but it still won't work. Something changed on my Windows 7 machine that has locked it from doing any outgoing connections.