I lost my ability to access my shared folders on my network computer.

I lost my ability to access my shared folders on my network computer. My setup; my main computer an Acer desktop running Win 7 64 bit. My second a Windows XP computer.

My problem; I can no longer access my shared folders on my XP computer. I had a couple of folders on my XP system set as shared and I had no problems accessing them from my Win 7 system until now. I even had the folders mapped to their own drive letters. And I had no problem sharing my printer over my network.

I've had this setup for about four years now and all of a sudden it just vanished. From my Windows explorer, in Windows 7 I disconnected the mapped drives to see if I could clear it out but nothing. I also noticed I couldn't enable the "Turn on network discovery" in the Advanced Sharing Settings in the Network and Sharing Centre.

I searched online but kept coming up with the same answers. Mainly make sure the following services where enabled:

- TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper service
- DNS Client
- Function Discovery Resource Publication
- SSDP Discovery
- UPnP Device Host

The only two that where not enabled where the last to SSDP Discovery and UPnP Device Host, because as long as I can remember the main consensus online was that these two services where BAD.

So I always disable both of these things with every computer I've ever had including this one. All these years and now all of a sudden I can't seem to do without them. No wonder people believe Microsoft is sabotaging older systems on purpose.

Anyway I can keep Network discovery enabled but still cannot access any of my shared folders.

Also by right clicking on any folder I notice there are no sharing options there what-so-ever. And it gets worse because if I go to Windows explorer and click on the Network listings I only see my Windows 7 Acer computer, and by opening that I see what seems like my entire User folder shared, something I've never done and another folder that I know that I've never shared.

The error message from my Windows 7 is "The network path was not found" when trying to access XP. I also use to share a printer hooked up my my Acer and had no problem printing from my XP . My printer driver on my XP is still installed but with an error message “unable to connect”. One final note, I could never access any Windows 7 folder from my XP but I had no problems accessing the XP folders from Windows 7 until now.

Any suggestions?

Sorry to bother you but I found a partial solution. I deleted my network drivers on my Acer and restarted, this gave me back access to my folders on XP but I noticed my entire User profile folder is still being shared and I don't see any option to disable it.

I solved my problem by going to the following registry key:
Move to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanserver\Shares
I deleted the user folder and other one from the Shares key and it seems to have solved the problem, for now. So I'm marking this one as solved.