Home Group and Network Issues

I have two computers on a home network (linksys); wireless (and lan) connections. I have several problems which may be related (or not) and any help is greatly appreciated.

1. Homegroups: I've been around and around. Neither computer "thinks" it is in shared homegroup. I've tried everything I can think of. Passwords are the same, just nothing.

2. In Explorer from the Desktop, I can see the notebook but when I click on it to expand it I am asked for a network user and password. Never before. What is this? I added a Windows credential in the Credential manager but still didn't work.

3. Printing from the notebook to the printers connected (USB) to the desktop is very flakey (maybe because of the home group issue?). Both my network printers are "offline" as far as the notebook is concerned but not from the desktop.

THANKS
RON

Which PC has the home group been setup on?

Do both the computers have Windows 7 installed? If they don't you need to be using a workgroup rather than a homegroup.

If they do, have a read through this Microsoft article, which describes how to set up a homegroup from start to finish.

HomeGroup from start to finish - Help & How-to - Microsoft Windows

Yes, both computers are identical Win7. I've tried the home group on both of them, each of them. They don't see each other (that way).

When it asks for a password like that it sometimes means that the time and or date settings on both machines are out of sync with each other. All the Homegroup machines need to have the same correct time and date for the Homegroup to work correctly.

This assumes that both machines are part of the same Homegroup meaning that you created a Homegroup on one machine and used the password it gave you to join the other machine to the Homegroup.

The time/date settings are identical. There is no provision to join an already existing home group.

Thing is, the notebook can see the desktop media player.

And I'm sharing everything on both machines.

RON

When I click on HomeGroup I get "there are no other people in your home group." On both computers. I can change the password and make both the same, to no avail. Not going to happen. No idea why.

yes, I followed it (there's not much to do). What I don't understand is why things change of their own accord. Now, when I click on the notebook's name in Network (from the desktop), it says it is unreachable. Yesterday I got a dialog box asking me to log in with my network ID and password (no idea what that is, by the way). Today, no. At times the Home Group did appear to be populated (but only briefly); and at times the printers connected to the Desktop have been accessible from the Notebook, but not now.