Can't connect XP PC to Win7 PC. Anyone help please?

martinlest · 07 May 2015

I have Googled this till I am blue in the face, so hope someone can assist!

I have one laptop running Windows XP 64-bit and another running Windows 7 64-bit. I have tried to set up file sharing over the two laptops - 50% successfully: from the Win7 laptop I can open and edit/copy (whatever) files on the XP laptop. However, although the latter sees the Win7 'PC', when I click on it in Network Places, I get a message, "Access denied. You might not have permission to use this network resource.."

The two 'PCs' share the same domain name. The folders I want to access are marked as shared. Turning off the firewalls doesn't help..

I tried this on the XP laptop:

Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
Locate and then double-click the following registry subkey:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa
On the right side, double-click restrictanonymous.
Make sure that the value in the Value data box is set to 0, and then click OK.
Close Registry Editor.
Restart the computer.

but the value was already 'zero'.

The issue must be with permissions, since I can create an icon for the Win7 laptop on the XP one.. maybe someone can help?

Many thanks,

Martin

RolandJS · 07 May 2015

Are you talking hard-wire, wireless, or both? I had similar troubles with W8 & W7 computers via wireless. Hardwire went more smoothly, more success than failure. Now, with W7 & W7, I sometimes have to reboot one computer to get both talking, file-sharing [copying, moving, etc.] working smoothly.

martinlest · 07 May 2015

Sorry, I thought to say that, then didn't. Via wi-fi... The laptops are too far apart to run wires.

Sven1458 · 07 May 2015

Hi martrinlest,
have you tried to set up a home group?
it is much easier then giving permission to access the hard drive to a second computer.
Sven

strollin · 07 May 2015

Once you get the permissions all setup properly to share files between computers on a network, it should work regardless of whether wired or wireless. The same set of permissions applies to either.

A Homegroup won't work because XP computers cannot join a Homegroup, only Win 7 and above versions of Windows support joining a Homegroup.

I no longer have any XP machines on my network but when I did, I found networking worked best when I created the same user & password on each machine. If I got prompted for a userid/pw, I would simply enter that userid/pw and would be granted access.

martinlest · 07 May 2015

Yes, I didn't try a Homegroup as this is not an option in XP...

I tried having both laptops with the same password. I have also set both laptops to have and require no password in User Accounts and in Control Passwords2, but no change: the XP laptop sees any shared folder I create on the Win7 one but always denies me access.

martinlest · 08 May 2015

OK, I got this working - sort of. I gave up trying to share my Win7 D drive (root) with the XPS laptop - nothing worked. However I had also tried to share two sub-folders on the D drive, and again, although the XP machine saw them, it denied access.

So, on the Win7 machine, I right-clicked each of the sub-folders and chose 'Share with'/Specific people. Then, in the drop-down name box, chose 'everyone', which was not already in the list for these folders. I gave full permissions in the advanced settings, and that was that. The XP laptop can now access these Win7 folders. So simple in the end, but it's taken me so long to discover where the problem was... (When you right-click on a root drive and choose 'Share with', you don't get the same options as with a sub-folder - you just get 'Advanced Sharing'. At least on my Win7 laptop I do.. not sure if it's the way I have things set up on it. But no matter, the folders I needed to access are now shown on the XP laptop... that's the main thing).

Martin