I just finished installing W7 again on my secondary rig, but when it wanted to setup the network, it created a new Homegroup password. Going back to my primary to get the old password, the box was blank, and it wanted me to enter the password from the secondary. Since the primary is the rig that will be the one hardwired to the router and internet and the secondary will only be WiFi, does it make a difference which rig's password is used?
If one of those Homegroup computers was online during the installation you would notice right before you get to the desktop a window allowing you to type in your current Homegroup password.
Just choose the Home network option in the first window then you get the next one where you can type in the current password.. It makes it easy to join the current Homegroup instead of making a new one.
As soon as you get to desktop all security and permissions will be set up correctly to allow everyone to stream movies music or share files. I have tested this out on all my machines, some are ten years old and it still works everytime.
I even took pictures last time just to show others how easy it is.
The rig that I just installed on, was not online during the installation. I only let it go online for the purpose of activation. That is when I first saw those windows, and used them until it came to the one that displayed the Homegroup password. This did not surprise me much, but the fact that when I selected Homegroup in the other rig to retrieve the password, it required me to join the Homegroup, which I thought that it was already part of. However, the Homegroup that it wanted to join was listed with the username and computer name of the secondary rig. I guess that it destroyed the original Homegroup in the seconds between connecting the ethernet cable for activation, and the items I described.
The question now is how best to return it to the configuration so that the Homegroup originates on the primary rig?
i have been going back and forth between the rigs, and it seems that no matter what I try, it wants to retain the Homegroup created by the secondary rig. I disconnected the secondary from the router and the primary still named the secondary's Homegroup. I set it to leave the homegroup, and created a new one on the primary, but after reconnecting the secondary, it won't recognize it, even when I set it to leave it's own Homegroup. Is the only way to correct this is to reinstall the secondary's OS?
Try going through this Homegroup walkthough and pay close attention to the part about the registry setting adjustment and the time/date needs to be correct also. Check these on both machines.
Ultimate Troubleshooting Guide for Windows 7 HomeGroup Connection Issues
Other than those two problems about the only other problem that occurs can be fixed by delating the following file.
The fix for this problem seems to be Deleting the file idstore.sst under C:\windows\serviceProfiles\LocalService\AppData\Roaming\PeerNetworking
Once everything at peer Networking Grouping is running you may also need to do this...
Start the Task Manager
Click on the service Tab
Find the "HomeGroupProvider"
and then stop the service.
You may need to go back into services and enable Peer networking again after the fix. Don't forget to restart all machines after making the adjustments.
I bet you wish you would have had that other Homegroup machine plugged in and turned on during the installation also with the Homegroup password written down, so much easier that way.
Being lazy, I decided to reinstall the OS, hoping to correct the problem. This time I did have both ethernet cables connected to the router, but when it came to the part about setting up the network, it never gave me a screen to input the primary's Homegroup password. Upon reaching desktop, I found that it was as before, with the secondary rig having the network, requiring the primary to join it. What did I do wrong?
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