Win 7 Home Premium Homegroup

[billmcl]

We have 3 Win 7-32 Home premium machines all on the same network and assigned to the same workgroup. After creating a Homegroup on one of the machines and obtaining the HG password, the other two machines say there are no Homegroups on the network.

All machines have been set to the same Advanced sharing options.

Comments?

 

[seavixen32]

Useful information here: Why can't I access my homegroup?

 

[billmcl]

Thanks, but none of the items mentioned in the MS Fixit article are pertinent to this situation. For example, all three computers are on a "home network", all are on the same network, network discovery is turned on in all cases, and one of the computers has created a Homegroup. The other two computers cannot see that home group and report that there is no Homegroup available on the network.

 

[Bill2]

If you're already networked, why do you need a HG?

 

[billmcl]

I was simply trying to share a printer. I was running into difficulty sharing the printer the normal way and thought that if I set these three computers up on a homegroup that would solve my issue of sharing the printer. I was finally able to get the printer shared without using a home group, but wondered why I was unable to install a home group in the first place.

 

[seavixen32]

Not sure whether this link will help, but I'll post it anyway:

Windows 7 HomeGroup: Frequently Asked Questions

 

[Chaswey]

Have you checked the names of the computers? See this:

Failure to set up HomeGroup

Make sure items below are ALLOWED in the firewall of each machine:

Core Networking;
File and Printer Sharing
HomeGroup;
Network Discovery

The following contains a "fix" from Microsoft and also lists services that need to be running on all machines for HG to work:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Why-can-t-I-join-a-homegroup

 

[billmcl]

thanks for your message. In this situation, the problem is not due to a naming issue. The three computers are named mentor1, mentor2, and mentor3. And, file and printer sharing and network discovery are allowed in the firewall.

This issue is frustrating because if I go to one of the computers that indicates there is no home group in the network (when in fact mentor1 successfully created a home group) the network and sharing Center does show all three mentor computers.

 

[Chaswey]

And, file and printer sharing and network discovery are allowed in the firewall.

What about Core Networking and HomeGroup in the firewalls?

Don't forget firewalls on all three machines have to be set up the same.

Have you checked that all three have the correct Services running as per :

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Why-can-t-I-join-a-homegroup

Also see the corrupted "peer networking idstore.sst" file in the article.

Can't think of anything else at the moment.

 

[billmcl]

I believe all firewalls are the same (these are three new computers). But I will recheck that shortly. And, I do believe that all three have the correct services running. I appreciate the links.