Forgive me if this repeats steps already taken, but it's a long thread, and life is short.
Things you may wish to try, Bill, are removing some of the Microsoft obfuscation in the Windows 7 networking, and enabling some of the stuff in XP that was not "fitted as standard".
Windows 7.
Open the Network and sharing center and select your internet connection, and then properties to show all the clients and protocols and networking services:
Note only 3 items are checked - that's all you need for TCP/IP connectivity - IPv6 is still not fully implemented yet, and just runs as a parallel drain on resources for most networking and internet requirements. Not even in Windows 7, despite the protestations of the Win 7 troubleshooters! Homegroups and Workgroups run without the excess baggage of IPv6 and the associated layers.
It's up to you if you want to try unchecking the probably unneeded protocols, but I have no problems without them.
You will need some services running (please let me know of any errors or omissions here):
Code:
Computer Browser
DHCP Client
DNS Client
Extensible Authentication Protocol
Function Discovery Provider Host
Function Discovery Resource Publication
Group Policy Client
HomeGroup Listener
HomeGroup Provider
IP Helper
IPsec Policy Agent
Microsoft Network Inspection
Net.Pipe Listener Adapter
Net.Tcp Listener Adapter
Net.Tcp Port Sharing Service
Network Connections
Network List Service
Network Location Awareness
Network Store Interface Service
Peer Name Resolution Protocol
Peer Networking Grouping
Peer Networking Identity Manager
Plug and Play
Print Spooler
Security Accounts Manager
Security Center
Server
Simple TCP/IP Services
SSDP Discovery
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
UPnP Device Host
User Profile Service
Windows Firewall
WLAN AutoConfig
Workstation
The services can be started in the Computer Management console, or in task manager. If not available, the Windows components may need to be added in Control Panel.
In XP SP3/2 Peer to peer networking is available, but the components are not automatically installed, and the additional networking components need to be installed, likewise from the XP control Panel, Add Windows Components. The Install disk for SP3 will be needed (I think that the I386 folder in XPMode has these files available, if the XP install disk is not at hand. The folder can be extracted from the XPMode installable download using the 7-zip file manager freeware.)
Beyond this, problems may occur in the WINS resolution Browse Master competition, but I'll post on that later.
