Homegroup insanity - one way only

[combres]

I have gone through the forums, tried multiple things to get this damned homegroup to work to no avail. Please help!

Setup:
Brand new lenovo laptop with Win7 home premium
Desktop with win7 professional - fresh install
uverse router

Both computers can connect to the homegroup no problem.
Desktop (pro) can see the files and folders on the Lenovo through homegroup
The laptop (home prem) can see the desktop's homegroup folders, but when I double click, it won't allow me in.

This one way direction is useless for what I am trying to do. I want to be able to stream video from the desktop to the laptop.

One thing that I thought could be causing the issue is the same user name that I had on both computers, so I changed the username on one of the computers and it still didn't work. I even removed passwords on both computers, still nothing.

I am pretty sure it is the win7pro computer that is blocking something. Any ideas? Help!

Thanks

 

[Ztruker]

Check the Windows Firewall settings in Control Panel for both computers. Click on "Allow a program or feature through the firewall", then scroll down and make sure File and Printer sharing it checked.

 

[combres]

Thanks for the reply, but that firewall setting was fine.

However, I figured it out somehow. It was very weird because I went to mycomputer then manage and was changing the password of the username I had created that matched the laptops' username. Somehow all of a sudden I was able to get access from the laptop to the homegroup.

So I deleted this user and I was still able to get to the folders from the laptop, weird...

So i left the homegroup and then rejoined. Couldn't connect. I then added a user to the desktop pro machine as before with the same username, etc. Still couldn't connect. So I noticed that this new user although it had a membership to administrators, it didn't have one to "homeuser". So I added that membership and viola, the f$%king thing worked. What a mind-f. I have been screwing with this thing for 2 days now. Windows 98 and server was easier than this homegroup crap to troubleshoot...

Very strange. So I tried to delete the user from the desktop pro machine and I can still connect from the laptop even after restarting the laptop. This has to be a bug with homegroup, windows pro and home machines.

Any thoughts on why there is this behavior?

 

[combres]

Actually I misspoke. I logged off from the laptop and the share continued to work. as soon as I restarted, it didn't so the user must be necessary on the windows pro machine to allow the homegroup to work.

Homeusers security group was the culprit. Hopefully this finding helps others with a similar setup.

 

[combres]

Scratch all of what I said.

I tested my theory just to be sure and now I am back to square one. I cannot connect using homegroup and I can't even connect with a pure folder share (dual permissions, etc).

The win7 home prem machine just keeps asking me for network login credentials and I try to login with the username and pw that I have on the win7 pro machine, and it says specified network password is not correct. WTF!!!!

Is there some type of time delay that I have to wait for these changes to stick? ANy other ideas?

 

[aem]

I don't use Homegroup, don't believe in unnecessary ways to share files. If you want to move files from A to B, search for my tutorial.

 

[kado897]

Might be better off using a Workgroup and the identical userid/password trick.

 

[detailer]

Screw Homegroup

I devoted countless hours to get it to work (and I'm no noob) with little to no success.Though a great concept,there are just too many configuration problems that simply shouldn't exist.I can't find the link,but I read an article where a speed comparison was done,sharing identicle files between two PC's-with Homegroup vs the conventional method (you know,MSHOME the way that works),and though we're talking fractions of a second,Homegroup was actually slower-go figure! Seems you can share terbytes of data the old fashioned way in less time than it takes to get homegroup working,if at all

 

[aem]

If you think about it sharing of files such as videos, photos etc is little more than what teenagers do. It's not really made for professional/business use. It's just a fancy way of sharing files, unnecessarily taking up OS resources.

 

[Darryl Licht]

If you think about it sharing of files such as videos, photos etc is little more than what teenagers do. It's not really made for professional/business use. It's just a fancy way of sharing files, unnecessarily taking up OS resources.

Did I just read that?
"... a little more than what teenagers do... not really made for professional/business use"??? How can you say that?

Many SOHO's (Small Office Home Office) networks utilize Win7 file sharing everyday to share business documents. I support many of these peer to peer networks. Win7 Pro has support for 20 simultaneous incoming connections now. Either homegroups (Only Win7 machines) or workgroups, (Mixed XP, Vista, Win7 networks or all Win7) both work fine. Although, Homegroups are way more prone to problems.

 

[aem]

If you think about it sharing of files such as videos, photos etc is little more than what teenagers do. It's not really made for professional/business use. It's just a fancy way of sharing files, unnecessarily taking up OS resources.

Did I just read that?
"... a little more than what teenagers do... not really made for professional/business use"??? How can you say that?

Many SOHO's (Small Office Home Office) networks utilize Win7 file sharing everyday to share business documents. I support many of these peer to peer networks. Win7 Pro has support for 20 simultaneous incoming connections now. Either homegroups (Only Win7 machines) or workgroups, (Mixed XP, Vista, Win7 networks or all Win7) both work fine. Although, Homegroups are way more prone to problems.

Yep you heard me. It's for teenagers sharing videos, music etc sounds not pro to me man, as in at work.

 

[Darryl Licht]

aem: Perhaps you forget the reasons to create a network in the first place; To share an Internet connection, to share printers, to share data (files and folders)... notice any recurring theme here????

YES, sharing is the recurring reason!

Is sharing of photos/videos mechanically any different than sharing a folder containing business docs? NO... it isnt!

 

[aem]

lol i was only having abit of fun. Technically sharing is sharing, but the methods of sharing and what is getting shared is imo an individual thing know what i mean.