Home Network

[seekermeister]

I've been going in circles trying to establish my networks between my primary and secondary rigs. I have also been going in circles trying to put together the many tutorials on the forum for this purpose, but being that my short term memory is shot, the harder that I try, the more flustrated that I get.

I know that it was recommended to use a public network, but not really understanding that, I have been going for a home network. At the moment, on the secondary rig, going to the Network window, it shows only itself under Computer, but it shows both rigs under Media Devices. Clicking on Computer only show a Users folder Previously, I had the printer showing on the secondary as a network printer, but for some reason, that has disappeared, and the wizard doesn't find it again.

On the primary, it only sees itself, with three items listed, both accounts and the computer. Click on the computer, it shows 4 folders..."d", "Users" "and Documents" plus the printer

I have tried to use the Homegroup passwords, but each time that I try, it fails on both rigs. I'm not exactly certain what I should see with the network properly working, so I'm groping in the dark. Anyone have a light?

 

[aem]

How are your rigs connected to the network?

 

[seekermeister]

How are your rigs connected to the network?

Yes, they are both hardwired via the router

 

[seekermeister]

From your specs, ,It looks to me like you are trying to set up Homegroups with your XP pro machine and a Windows 7 machine?

Homegroups is only made to work properly with Windows 7 machines so that will cause you some problems until you leave the Homegroup from the Windows 7 machines. That is why you are having problems with the Homegroup passwords.

After that you should try setting up a Workgroup on the Windows 7 machine then run the Network Setup Wizard on the XP machine and join the new Workgroup from there.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/43980-homegroup-leave.html?filter

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/43629-network-location-set-home-work-public-network.html?filter

No. XP is a secondary OS on my primary rig, but I'm booted into W7 on both rigs.

 

[seekermeister]

In that case maybe Homegroups wasn't set up correctly. Those passwords are case sensitive in case you didn't notice that.

I used copy/paste, so I don't think that is the issue.

 

[seekermeister]

At this point, I'm not sure which computer that was setup first, but in so far as entering the password, I haven't been able to do so on either. Curiously, if I click on account under Media Devices on the secondary, it open the WMP wizard. The same thing happens on the primary, but there is no title for Media Devices...or for that matter, for Computer either.

 

[seekermeister]

I think that I may have found part of the problem. I ran the troubleshooters on both rigs, and on the secondary it said that the local time and system time didn't match, but it didn't fix it. I'm assuming that system time is that set in the BIOS (true?). How close together do they have to be...down to the second? If so, how do I sync the times so precisely? It seems that I vaguely recall seeing something about setting the local time to the system time, but I have been looking high and low, but haven't found it.

 

[seekermeister]

I'm not positive, but I think that I have the clocks set now...at least the troubleshooter didn't complain about it, but the differences in time were only a couple of minutes at the most. I'm still confused about the definitions of system time, because it was complaining about a difference in system time and local time. If system time is not the BIOS, but the time set in Windows, then what is the local time reference? If this is referring to the actual time, I already have that set to sync online, so there shouldn't be a difference in local and system time.

I'm also confused about definitions of homegroup vs network. Currently, it shows me joined on the first screen of the Network and Sharing Center, but it did that before I entered the primary password also, so I don't know if that really means joined to the Homegroup or the network.

Now, when I select the troubleshooter, I get a page of options to examine, like with the primary rig (before I only got one option...to troubleshoot), When I select shared files, the next screen ask for the network location. \\networkname\folder. Where do I find the network name? What folder?

 

[seekermeister]

You didn't address this question from my last post...would you?

Now, when I select the troubleshooter, I get a page of options to examine, like with the primary rig (before I only got one option...to troubleshoot), When I select shared files, the next screen ask for the network location. \\networkname\folder. Where do I find the network name? What folder?

 

[chev65]

For Homegroups to work you need to use the "Home" network location.

I think this is what your asking about? This is one of the first things you do before creating the Homegroup.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/43629-network-location-set-home-work-public-network.html?filter

 

[seekermeister]

I already had the settings as shown in the page that you linked, but that doesn't seem to account for the path that it asks for as indicated in my last post.

I seem to have made some progress, because now at least both computers are visible on the other, but when selecting the primary from the secondary, it shows 3 folders and the printer, but when selecting the secondary from the primary, it only shows 1 folder.

Even that much seems more than it should be, because I have yet to get the secondary to accept the primary's homegroup password. This may be easy for some people, but I'm not one of them.

 

[chev65]

It does take awhile too get your head wrapped around the Homegroup concept. Once you get it it's pretty easy but it took me a couple of months for it to sink in.

Once you get the password to work there should be no need to use any type of \\sharename manual network set up. The Homegroup set up will take care of all of that for you.

For that password problem, make sure the date/time is correct in both bios and system on both machines.

With this setting you can tell Homegroup which folders you want to share or you can add permissions for other folders also by just right clicking on the folder and chooseing "Share With" then choose "Everyone".

 

[seekermeister]

Yes, I always checkmark all of those, click next, enter the password, click next and nothing happens. If I go back to the beginnig, what I checkmarked before is blank, but repeating the process goes nowhere.

Some how, I get the feeling that something is blocking the password data from going from one machine to the other.

 

[chev65]

So, the seconday machine's Homegroup password still isn't being accepted?

Nothing will work right unless you can get past that problem which should hopefully be taken care of when you set the time/date in the system and in bios.

 

[seekermeister]

I don't know why you are repeating the time instructions, because I think that we resolved that issue earlier. As far as I can tell, all time settings are within one or two seconds of each other.

When I go to timeanddate.com, it shows my clocks running ~12 seconds fast, but both machines are set to time-b.nist.gov, so if that server is wrong, I would think that the system would assume that their time is correct anyway.

 

[chev65]

I only mentioned that because it's about the only thing that can keep the password from working. Those passwords are also case sensitive in case you didn't notice. Either that or IPv6 isn't working but I mentioned that earlier.

As for the clocks, that time server is fine but the bios clocks aren't set by that. For the bios clock,.. the only way to set that is to go into bios and change it. It's also easy to miss that the dates are on but the year can still be off and that will cause endless problems.

 

[seekermeister]

There is something more that is the matter, besides any time issues. When I join the homegroup on the primary, it appears to succeed, but when I enter the primary's password into the secondary homegroup wizard, it always ends the same...no joy. Each time that I run the homegroup troubleshooter, it always speaks of a network problem, but when I let it proceed to attempt to fix the problem, it always says that it is unable. It doesn't specifically say what the problem is, so I would have difficulty attempting to do a manual repair myself.

It's like a rat race, and the rats are chasing their tails.

 

[seekermeister]

Another question before I start hacking on those ideas. In another thread, I noted that you said that the name of the accounts on the different computers had to be different for homegroup to work. I intentionally have identically named accounts in both computer. Would this be the reason for my particular problem?

 

[aem]

Can you plaease summarise what's happenning and what needs to happen?

Both pc are wired to the router, so the next logical question is ware they pingable from one another. You're not a noob seekermeister, sorry if it's a dumb question, but i need to get pasted it.

 

[seekermeister]

chev65,

When looking at the services in msconfig, as you have shown, it does not show the two peer services that you highlight, but it does show Peer Name Resolution Protocol that your screenshot doesn't show. Also looking in services.msc, it shows all three peer items enabled and started, but they are set on manual.