Win 7 and Vista connection woes

[Smiling Carcass]

I am trying to network my 32 bit Vista laptop and 64 bit Win 7 desktop.

Win 7 desktop can see and connect to Vista laptop and I have set up folder synching using Allway Sync.

My Vista laptop can see my Win 7 desktop in network ‘full map’ and I can ping the desktop from the laptop. But it will not let me open files or folders on the desktop. It asks for the username and password, which I enter correctly but I get the response the username and/or password is incorrect.

The funny thing is, I had this setup before, but had the reverse issue where the laptop would connect to the desktop but the desktop would not connect to the laptop with the same symptoms.

Am I missing something simple? I have ‘googled’ for a solution, but lots of people have similar problems with no solution and the advice is generally to do what I have already done.

 

[zigzag3143]

I am trying to network my 32 bit Vista laptop and 64 bit Win 7 desktop.

Win 7 desktop can see and connect to Vista laptop and I have set up folder synching using Allway Sync.

My Vista laptop can see my Win 7 desktop in network ‘full map’ and I can ping the desktop from the laptop. But it will not let me open files or folders on the desktop. It asks for the username and password, which I enter correctly but I get the response the username and/or password is incorrect.

The funny thing is, I had this setup before, but had the reverse issue where the laptop would connect to the desktop but the desktop would not connect to the laptop with the same symptoms.

Am I missing something simple? I have ‘googled’ for a solution, but lots of people have similar problems with no solution and the advice is generally to do what I have already done.

I suspect you have two problems.. First you are probably running homegroup. Since you have vista and win 7 you should be running "workgroup", second Joe on vista is not the same as joe on win 7. So user name Joe with password on one must be set up as machine name\joe\password.

Let us know if you need help

Ken

 

[Smiling Carcass]

Thanks, Ken but I am not using Homegroup both machines are in the same workgroup.
I'll try your 'name' suggestion and see where it goes. Be back to let you know.

 

[Smiling Carcass]

Tried:
\\computername\username

username@computername

COMPUTERNAME\username

username

The last 3 suggested by Vista


Still no joy. Using the 3 Vista suggestions I got a ‘Login unsuccessful’ but the one I tried with the double backslash resulted in the Vista suggestions.

 

[chev65]

Which A/V software are you using? Which ever one you are using it's most likely causing this problem.

 

[Smiling Carcass]

Using AVGv Free on both machines but I wouldn't have thought A/V would block a wireless connection, at least not without a warning that I usually get when AVG identifies problems. Maybe a firewall. but I do not use software firewall, only the routers firewall.

I did read that I need to change the encryption in advanced sharing options from 128 bit to 64 bit in Win 7 but I'm blowed if I can find the option.

 

[chev65]

I can assure you that AVG can easily cause this type of problem. A/V's are pretty much made to block connections from being made including wireless connections. It's also famous for causing intermittent sharing problems such as you seem to be having. I have no reason to make this information up. It's a fact and has proven to be true so many times I've lost count.

If you are using a workgroup you should make sure that the Workgroup name is the same for all machines.

After that run the network setup wizard on the Vista machines and be sure and set permissions for sharing. You may need to uninstall AVG completely before this works. Your third party sync program can also cause problems in some cases. Make sure the time/date settings are in sync on your machines because that can cause the User name password are incorrect problem.

It's always best to set up sharing and make sure it's all working before installing any type of A/V software.

The options for the encryption and other advanced sharing options can be found under the Advance Sharing Options window which you can get to by going to the Network and Sharing center of the Windows 7 machine.

Make sure that all the correct options are enabled on both the Home-Work and the Public Advanced sharing options windows.

 

[Smiling Carcass]

Chev65, even though I think it unlikely, I am open to all suggestions at this stage. I even read somewhere that turning off hardware acceleration for graphics cards has been effective for this problem. Totally unintuitive, but at least one person said it worked for them.

So, I prevented AVG from starting on both machines with msconfig. No joy (though I have noted you think it might need to be uninstalled)

I found the encryption option and the choice was to turn off 128 bit encryption and enable 40 – 56 bit encryption- no mention of 64 bit so I tried this. No result.

I’m really stumped with this one. I can see the desktop on the network and can ping it. But I cannot access it because the password/login combination are reported as incorrect. (Which they aren’t).

Now going to try running the network wizard on the vista laptop.

 

[HillbillyX]

I had this.
Problem was that all my PCs have the same user name and pw. The old Vista kept reverting to oldVistaComputerName\userName if inputting just userName and inputting win7ComputerName\userName was rejected.
For anyone else the following worked: setup a new account in Win7 (can use same pw) and input newUserName. Magic.

 

[paul1149]

Sorry if I missed this, but do you have NTFS permissions set on the Win7 machine to let the Vista user in?

 

[HillbillyX]

Hello Paul.
Never had a problem on W7 which let Vista in from the start.
It was my 2 Vistas which would *not* access W7 until the 'trick' of setting a new user account in W7 (with a different user name to all the others).
BTW reference the other posts: I have always used AVG and it is not a/the problem.

 

[seavixen32]

Hope you don't mind me butting in. You may find the information in this link useful.

Networking home computers running different versions of Windows

It does stress that if you use a third-party firewall, you must configure it to allow file and printer sharing. The Windows firewall does it automatically.

 

[HillbillyX]

Seavixen/ Useful link but for others..
- all my network ports/firewalls/permissions/workgroups/etc./etc. must have already been set OK for my solution to work,
- I'm guessing that Vista was somehow substituting its own \\nw path name. However, I never had that when connecting Vista pcs together.
(My) conclusion: you cannot network login to W7 from Vista using one common userName. That may be crap but it is a solution that worked for me.

 

[Smiling Carcass]

Solved

Sorry I haven’t been back for a while. The solution I found, contrary to all logic and advice was to have the same password and username on both machines. It shouldn’t have made a difference, but it did.

I’m now running Win 7 on both machines so the problem is both fixed and irrelevant!