Sharing between Windows 7 and XP

I'm very new at networking, so please be tolerant of my ignorance.

I have a Windows 7 Ultimate 64 system and a Windows XP Home SP3 system. After a lot of blind alleys, I've got them connected through a Netgear wireless router physically connected to the Win 7 machine, and a Cisco USB network adapter on the XP machine. And I've managed to get my two printers on the Win 7 machine accessible to the XP machine. Now I'm working on sharing.

Since I am the only user of EITHER machine, I'm not particularly concerned about access control in either one. If there were a simple checkmark to say "Let everything on both computers be accessible from EITHER computer," I'd check it. But for now, what I've done in an effort to get started is to share the D and E drives on both machines. I've gone through the steps to share the drives, acknowledged that I understand the security issues (on the XP machine), and the drives on both machines have names.

Now for the problem. From the Win 7 machine, the drives are listed under the XP machine under NETWORK in Windows Explorer. And I can click on them, expand their folders, and access their files with no problem. However, on the XP machine, under Network Places, under ENTIRE NETWORK, the drives are listed--that is, it shows D on Office (the XP computer) and D on Dell (the Win 7 computer). Same for drive E. However, if I click on the D on Dell drive, I get a message that says \\Dll\D is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access. Access is denied.

Well, I'm the administrator of that server, I guess, and I thought I gave me access. However to be sure I went back to the Win 7 machine and went through the Permissions options on the D and E drives. They were both listed as Read for Everyone. So I changed them both to Full Control for Everyone. But that didn't change the Access Denied box on the XP machine. (I didn't really think it would, since it would not let me access the drives at all, even just to read). There is also listed on the XP machine, a folder named users on Dell, and it has two subfolder, default and Public. Those folders can be expanded without a problem.

Anyone know what I'm missing here?

RP McIntosh said:

I'm very new at networking, so please be tolerant of my ignorance.

I have a Windows 7 Ultimate 64 system and a Windows XP Home SP3 system. After a lot of blind alleys, I've got them connected through a Netgear wireless router physically connected to the Win 7 machine, and a Cisco USB network adapter on the XP machine. And I've managed to get my two printers on the Win 7 machine accessible to the XP machine. Now I'm working on sharing.

Since I am the only user of EITHER machine, I'm not particularly concerned about access control in either one. If there were a simple checkmark to say "Let everything on both computers be accessible from EITHER computer," I'd check it. But for now, what I've done in an effort to get started is to share the D and E drives on both machines. I've gone through the steps to share the drives, acknowledged that I understand the security issues (on the XP machine), and the drives on both machines have names.

Now for the problem. From the Win 7 machine, the drives are listed under the XP machine under NETWORK in Windows Explorer. And I can click on them, expand their folders, and access their files with no problem. However, on the XP machine, under Network Places, under ENTIRE NETWORK, the drives are listed--that is, it shows D on Office (the XP computer) and D on Dell (the Win 7 computer). Same for drive E. However, if I click on the D on Dell drive, I get a message that says \\Dll\D is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access. Access is denied.

Well, I'm the administrator of that server, I guess, and I thought I gave me access. However to be sure I went back to the Win 7 machine and went through the Permissions options on the D and E drives. They were both listed as Read for Everyone. So I changed them both to Full Control for Everyone. But that didn't change the Access Denied box on the XP machine. (I didn't really think it would, since it would not let me access the drives at all, even just to read). There is also listed on the XP machine, a folder named users on Dell, and it has two subfolder, default and Public. Those folders can be expanded without a problem.

Anyone know what I'm missing here?

Are you by chance using "homegroup"? On some mixed networks homegroup has problems with connectivity, and sharing issues.

You can verify if that is the problem by creating a new network connection using "workgroup". If the problem disappears you can disable Ipv6 and kill homegroup


Let us know if you need some help

Ken

You are missing the fact that it's a huge security risk to share entire drives which is why it's not very easy to do. You would be better served using the pre shared folders instead. Windows 7 is set up like that for a reason. Although you can share the entire drive, it takes more effort and isn't worth the hassle and can also create some other problems. You would be much better off just sharing the entire User folders instead.

If you insist on sharing the entire drive do this on both machines "not a good idea".

Open My Computer -> right click Local Disk D -> select Properties -> select Security tab -> click Edit button -> click Add button -> enter the name of the User you want to set Security permissions (it is the same user name you've set the sharing permissions for, ex. Or Typing in Everyone will set the read permissions to every user -> click OK -> select the desired permissions -> click OK -> wait while permissions are set -> and your Done.
Try to connect to your drive through your XP machines and you should get the content of your Windows 7 shared drive

zigzag3143 said:

RP McIntosh said:

I'm very new at networking, so please be tolerant of my ignorance.

I have a Windows 7 Ultimate 64 system and a Windows XP Home SP3 system. After a lot of blind alleys, I've got them connected through a Netgear wireless router physically connected to the Win 7 machine, and a Cisco USB network adapter on the XP machine. And I've managed to get my two printers on the Win 7 machine accessible to the XP machine. Now I'm working on sharing.

Since I am the only user of EITHER machine, I'm not particularly concerned about access control in either one. If there were a simple checkmark to say "Let everything on both computers be accessible from EITHER computer," I'd check it. But for now, what I've done in an effort to get started is to share the D and E drives on both machines. I've gone through the steps to share the drives, acknowledged that I understand the security issues (on the XP machine), and the drives on both machines have names.

Now for the problem. From the Win 7 machine, the drives are listed under the XP machine under NETWORK in Windows Explorer. And I can click on them, expand their folders, and access their files with no problem. However, on the XP machine, under Network Places, under ENTIRE NETWORK, the drives are listed--that is, it shows D on Office (the XP computer) and D on Dell (the Win 7 computer). Same for drive E. However, if I click on the D on Dell drive, I get a message that says \\Dll\D is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access. Access is denied.

Well, I'm the administrator of that server, I guess, and I thought I gave me access. However to be sure I went back to the Win 7 machine and went through the Permissions options on the D and E drives. They were both listed as Read for Everyone. So I changed them both to Full Control for Everyone. But that didn't change the Access Denied box on the XP machine. (I didn't really think it would, since it would not let me access the drives at all, even just to read). There is also listed on the XP machine, a folder named users on Dell, and it has two subfolder, default and Public. Those folders can be expanded without a problem.

Anyone know what I'm missing here?

Are you by chance using "homegroup"? On some mixed networks homegroup has problems with connectivity, and sharing issues.

You can verify if that is the problem by creating a new network connection using "workgroup". If the problem disappears you can disable Ipv6 and kill homegroup


Let us know if you need some help

Ken

No, I had read that you shouldn't use the homegroup feature when you don't have Win 7 on one or more of the computers on the network. So that wasn't the problem. But after reading the next note, I think the step I missed was setting permissions on the Security tab of the drive. I did that, and it seems to be working now.

chev65 said:

You are missing the fact that it's a huge security risk to share entire drives which is why it's not very easy to do. You would be better served using the pre shared folders instead. Windows 7 is set up like that for a reason. Although you can share the entire drive, it takes more effort and isn't worth the hassle and can also create some other problems. You would be much better off just sharing the entire User folders instead.

If you insist on sharing the entire drive do this on both machines "not a good idea".

Open My Computer -> right click Local Disk D -> select Properties -> select Security tab -> click Edit button -> click Add button -> enter the name of the User you want to set Security permissions (it is the same user name you've set the sharing permissions for, ex. Or Typing in Everyone will set the read permissions to every user -> click OK -> select the desired permissions -> click OK -> wait while permissions are set -> and your Done.
Try to connect to your drive through your XP machines and you should get the content of your Windows 7 shared drive

OK. What I had missed was the step to add the Everyone category on the Security Tab. I tried that, and now the drives are visible.

But I don't want to casually disregard your advice about sharing the entire drive. As I mentioned before, this network has only 2 computers. And both of them are used ONLY by me. No one else even lives in the house. What I was looking for was the convenience of being able to access virtually everything that is on either computer from the other. But I certainly don't want to create an unacceptable risk. Can you clarify for me how, given my situation, my risk is increased by sharing drives in this manner? Note that I'm something of an old school guy on the issue of drives. I have partitioned drives (several of them) on both systems. And I tend to segregate things by drive--keeping only the OS and key utilities (antivirus, etc) on the C drive, putting most applications on my N drive, keeping the E drive for imaging and backup only (it is a complete physical drive of 1.5 TB--the only non-partitioned drive I have), and storing most of what I call my product files (documents, databases, etc on an R drive. I have a small (1 GB) drive formatted as FAT 16 on which I have two old DOS programs installed, just for compatibility purposes. And I have an S drive where I keep most of my image files, etc. You sort of get the idea. Because I have several drives, it becomes confusing to share only folders (unless I give each a new name that tells me what drive it's on).

Also, can you tell me if there is any PARTICULAR risk in sharing the entire C drive? I haven't done that yet, and if there is something that doesn't come immediately to mind that would cause an elevated risk, then I'd go through all of the first level folders on the C drive, and share them (including giving each a new share name) one by one.

I do appreciate your help and advice, so please don't think that I am treating your caution about sharing drives casually.