Can't see XP Machine in Windows 7

I am experiencing a similar problem, but not the same as all responders. I recently upgraded my desktop to Windows 7 Professional with a separate partition, so I can still use it in XP Professional. Now I can not see my Windows XP Laptop when I boot up in Windows 7, nor can my XP laptop see my desktop when it is in Windows 7 mode. A friend has a Windows 7 Home Premium laptop, and I have no problem networking my XP laptop or desktop in XP mode with that W7HP laptop, and vice-versa.

Another interesting fact is that my W7Pro desktop sees all my other wifi devices (TV, Blu-ray, receiver, printer, roku) but not the XP computer. Not only that, but my XP laptop sees everything I just mentioned Except the W7Pro desktop.

I checked and double checked all the settings mentioned previously, including firewall settings, but no success.

Is there a simple solution? What is going on here? Is Windows 7 Pro just too complex to work for the average person?

spartie76 said:

Is there a simple solution? What is going on here? Is Windows 7 Pro just too complex to work for the average person?

Can you ping the other PC (PC name or IP address)? Try this from each PC.

RouterTech • RouterTech » Ping & IPConfig

Have a read of this thread I started recently...is the solution on there any use?
Can't remote desktop/ping XP PC, but can access its share folders

To Gregrocker: Tried your suggestions prior to posting, they were in previous posts.

To Rave79x: Ping succeswsful both ways, 2ms, no packet loss.

Up untill a few weeks ago, (running an XP and Win7 network) I had no problems with networking. Even using a USB printer installed on XP machine for printing from Win7 machine.
I have tried and tried to get the networking function back. (makes you want to tear your hair out, doesn't it)

Tonight I was looking (for the fifth time) at the properties of "Local Network Connection" on the Win7 computer and finally noticed this;

Sunbelt software firewall NDIS IM filter

mixed in with my ver 4 and 6 tcp/ip, Client for Microsoft Networks, etc.

I disabled the NDIS IM filter, and had my network working fine.
I think this thing was installed when I installed Spybot S&D or AdAware.

I had uninstalled them after I used them, maybe the uninstalls left the NDIS IM filter.

I have been having this exact same issue for about six months now with no solution but to use the FQDN of my XP machine.

This is useless when my routed dumps all leases upon restart and i have a few wireless devices attached to the router, one being my xp laptop with the printer im trying to access. Thus having to fix the FQDN share name every time i restart my router is an absolute pain, not to mention very slow due to the inherent lag of a fully qualified name.

So I spent a few hours researching the problem and have found the solution to mine.

1. Disable the IPv6 protocol on your 7 machine (if you don't need it, this speeds up LLTD responder requests)

2. Open the network interface properties on the XP computer that is connected to the network. (mine is wireless so i select the wireless adapter properties)

3. Click the Advanced Tab

4. In the Windows Firewall Box, Click the Settings button.

5. On the first page, make sure the firewall is On, then uncheck the "Don't allow exceptions" checkbox.

6. Click on the "Exceptions" Tab, make sure the "File and Printer Sharing" checkbox in the list is checked.

Then click ok on this window and the adapter properties window, restart the computer and once the machine has rebooted back into windows, it should work fine.

I hope this helps anyone else that has been hiving this problem for as long as I have

I realize this is an old thread, and I hate to "necro" something this old, but after several hours of work, and after reading hundreds of posts, I think I finally figured out most of the reasons this problem happens. I was able to fix two Windows 7 computers so that they "play nice" with all of my older XP machines.

These fixes assume that your network is somewhat configured and that you can reach your XP shared folders from the Win7 computer by entering either that computer's local IP address (e.g., 192.168.1.44) or by entering its share name (e.g., \\polywellwin7-64). If you can't get to the other computers using either of these direct methods, then your problems lie elsewhere.

It turns out that there are multiple reasons this happens, and you have to fix them all. All the settings can be found on the Windows 7 machine in the Control Panel Networking section. Because this is a problem that affects fewer and fewer people, I'm going to punt on giving you exact instructions on where each of these settings is located, but you can get to them all from the Windows 7 Network and Sharing Center icon.

Here is what you need to do:

1. Turn off IPv6 IP protocol in adapter settings. If you have both wireless and wired (on a laptop), do them both. This is, by far, the most important change.

2. Change WORKGROUP name to WORK and then back to WORKGROUP. This is an ancient bug in Windows, going back to Win98. Doing this forces Windows to rebuild all the references to WORKGROUP.

3. Do NOT create a Homegroup, and if one was created, then make the change to leave it. (I actually don't know why MS created the Homegroup concept.)

4. File sharing connections: change from 128-bit to "40- or 56-bit encryption." This is mandatory.

5. Change the network from Home to Work. This is probably the least important change, and I'm not sure it is needed, so do this one last.

You'll need to re-boot in order for these changes to take effect and, hopefully, cure the problem.