Cannot Network Windows 7 with Windows XP

[Antiqity]

Hi! guys please help me. i've installed Windows 7 Beta on my other computer, while first computer has Windows XP. When i try to access XP shared folders in windows 7, i can access it easilt, but when i try to access windows 7 folders it tells me you do not have the permission or network patn not found. Damn! i'm screwed. please help guys!

[Spyrus]

You need to do some tweaking. Goto Start -> Run. type gpedit.msc, select Windows Settings under Computer Configuration, select Security Settings, select Local Policies, select Security Options, go to Microsoft network client: Send unencrypted password to third-party SMB servers, set it to ENABLED.
now try accesing your shared folders.


Install WINXP using LAN connection

[alpha87ac]

On which computer do i use this configurations? windows xp or windows 7 or on both computers?
Do it on the windows 7 machine!

How or what steps did you take in the first place to be able to look at your xp folders from your windows 7 pc Still no luck! still gives me the same error! help me guys, i'm stuck. Windows 7 is an awesome operating system, but i dont wanna throw it out just because i'm not able to configurea stupid network! please help me!

Have you given the folder, the permission to access by everyone? right click on the folder, properties, permissions, access -> everyone! it is a stupid question asking but still, some people forget this! did all the damn things from hell and back! how did i forget the most simple and first step! thanks man! i really owe this one to you! ! i got it working but the speed is a but slow! never mind! Something is better then nothing!

Go to command prompt and ping the windows xp machine! if it responds then type its ip address in the run dialog box you will get throught!
example :

\\192.168.1.102

If you want ot access Windows 7 machine's shared folders you will have to configure the network and disable the password protection from the home network or office whichever you use
Well, I think sending unencrypted passwords is not necessary. I finally found in Win7 where to enter my workgroup name, which I change from the default to gain a little security. Once I did that I can network with my other XP machines using the same workgroup name just fine.
As mentioned I did have to make the shares on the Win7 machine to Everyone.

From the Start menu right-click Computer, Properties, Advanced; or Control Panel, System; then to the right of "Computer name, domain, and workgroup settings" click Change Settings, where you see the old familiar Computer Name tab, click the Change ... button and assign the same name to the workgroup as you have on the other computers you want to share with (XP-wise). And have your "logon" account be the same as on the other computer[s], same password too, unless you want to play with Win7's 'manage credentials' function (which I didn't and haven't).

Worked a treat thanks very much

Thought i'd register and say thanks, theres always an answer on the internet!

Thanks, now I can see the shared folders from my XP computer. But how do I deal with the login / password that seems to be required on the XP computer. The Win7 password for groups is for Win7 only? I tried just a login name and the password provided by my Win7 computer but it doesn't work????

Would help if the post you indicated actually worked.

Also although the beta may give access the Home Premium version does not.
gpedit.msc doesn't exist, only the dll.
I found the info given on this forum misleading to say the least. Do you have a method that actually works?

ruggb, thanks for the post. I've been playing with this for a week now and none of the "solutions" I tried did much. I was finally able to access my W7 machine from XP but could not access XP from W7. This worked great.

Hey guys! im new to this forum, but i have a similar probilem. Unlike the others, i have not even reached the first step! on both computers i cannot see the other computer.

My desktop pc, is running on windows xp and its connected by a ethernet cable to my belkin router. My laptop is running on windows 7 and its wirelessly connected to the belkin router. Ive tried running the networking wizards, and its not working. can someone shed some light into this! thank you in advance!

To "see" the xp machines in the w7 network list, try turning off the windows firewall. It worked for us. Microsoft does not make it easy to figure this out especially if you have a wireless router with a different name than the network.

it sounds like you have a different problem.
I would start by making sure your router firmware is up to date.
I have seen older Linksys routers do strange things with Vista and work fine with XP - updated firmware and all was fine.

It would be good if you can let us know the make/model of your belkin router. Have you tested internet only on one pc that is having Windows 7 installed on it and what is the result, are you able to browse, surf internet? I would also first recommend you to use a Windows 7 specific Driver for your router, install it and check whether everything goes fine or not?

1. After reset of router i got back the internet, if I try from my win 7 to find my network again i am loosing it.
2 I tried with the modem reset too, same issue
3 Ipconfig shows for win7 192.168.2.7; If I can copy and paste I will attach the cmd lines windows here. My router is 192.168.2.1
Sorry copy and paste not working, do you have an email to send it to you?
My router is belkin, is model f5d7230-4; router has the last firmware 8.00.06 for version 8000,

You can also check if the Network Discovery; File sharing; Public folder sharing and media sharing is turned on or not. You may set the permissions for the files and folders on the XP computer from the link below:
Set permissions for folders and files: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/u...rmissions.mspx

I tested wired, same issue, I got an unidentified network,but on network map for the first time I got the xp pc's but that was all it said cannot access or smth alike, and of course I lost connection with internet, need to unplug and plug the router.

I will try to do a reset; today instead I put back my xp hdd I set up the network and all is ok, doesn't this mean that the modem and router are ok? and the laptop network card is olk?
I don't know how on xp os is ok and on win 7 os not??? Can Microsoft hear or they are totally shameless, I sent them when i tested beta my problem but i did not get any reply, now I am waiting for a reply from Belkin the router manufacturer.

[ncRick]

OK so what's the trick? I can't see the other machines, all XP SP3, on my LAN from the Windows 7 machine. I set up Win7 for "homegroup". I browse the network and I see the DVR and the router but no XP PC's.
Where do I tell Win7 what the name of my workgroup is, like (in XP) under My Computer, Properties, Computer Name ? I'm presuming this is why Win7 doesn't see my other computers ?

[golfsferr@aol.com]

Hi everyone
I'm new to the forum but have exactly this same problem. I have tried everything that has been suggested above and still no connection. The best I get is on my XP pc, when I click on View Workgroup Computers, my laptop with Windows 7 appears but when I double click it I get a red X telling me I don't have access and to contact my administrator.

I have also tried to install the TCP/ip version 6 to my XP pc and it says that version is older than the one already installed and will not continue instatllation.

I have checked all the file and network sharing options so everything is allowed to share.

I have turned off the password option.

I have done most of theses things several times.

Could it be a router issue? I can get wireless access on my Windows 7 laptop but could the router be stopping the Windows 7 64 bit computer from seeing my home network?

Any and all thoughts welcome and thanks to all that take the time to respond.
Steve

[phuked]

Thanks, now I can see the shared folders from my XP computer. But how do I deal with the login / password that seems to be required on the XP computer. The Win7 password for groups is for Win7 only? I tried just a login name and the password provided by my Win7 computer but it doesn't work????

Have you tried connecting with the password for your xp pc? My Windows 7 pc is called Matt-PC. So for example if I am trying to connect to my Windows 7 pc from my xp pc I would type Matt-PC as username, and then use the password I use to logon to the windows 7 pc. Vice versa use your xp computer name and password as login to connect to windows 7 pc. It worked for me anyway, hope it helps you.

I am having a different problem all together now, windows 7 seems to be a bit tempermental. Put windows 7 on one of my pc's a few weeks ago. For a few days it seemed to work fine. But now for some reason only one of the network cables seem to actually get the internet. Windows 7 pc will work, but the xp machine won't. Swap over the cables in the back of the router and the windows 7 machine won't work but xp does. And win 7 pc comes up as unidentified network. It's like only that one port works. But when the win 7 pc is working, xbox live won't work properly. So for live I have to have xp plugged in. It's really weird and I have looked through tons of forums, including microsoft and it seems I'm not the only one with the unidentified network issue, people have made suggestions of which I have tried them all but nothing seems to work. I have yet to come across anyone that is having quite the same issues.

Not sure what to do any more, just waiting to see if microsoft acknowledge a problem.

[ruggb]

The confusion is that W7 has a number of things that LOOK like they will do the job, but don't. I think this one might actually be by design, but I don't know why.
Of course, whatever it was that I complained about when I was beta testing, they told me it was ALL by design. It isn't, but somehow they think that makes them holy.

Unlike XP, where if I want to share a drive, I share the drive and it is done. W7 will allow you to do that, but if you rt clk on a drive in windows explorer and share, you can go thru that whole thing that I did and all that it gets you is to SEE the drive on the XP system. If you clk on it in XP you have no permission even though I enabled "everyone". If you don't share it you don't see it, but sharing a drive provides no useful result.

You must individually share every top level folder you want access to. Yeh, some design. The folders actually have the same sharing function under PROPERTIES as appears for drives when you click SHARE WITH, which also doesn't get you access to the folders, only visibility.

You just have to do the same thing differently to get the results you want. The "SHARE WITH" function for a folder is different than that for a drive. THAT share function looks different than the other and it is the one that actually allows you to access the folder - It is not available for a drive. It will provide access to the folder and ALL sub-folders.

*SO........ Rt clk on EACH top level FOLDER in W7 that you want access to on the XP system. Select SHARE WITH - SPECIFIC PEOPLE.
The cursor will be in an empty box waiting for input. Click the dropdown arrow and select EVERYONE, then clk ADD. Then click the dropdown next to READ and select READ/WRITE, then SHARE on the bottom. When it is done, clk DONE.

It may be that setting the drive to full control carries down so that once you have read/write access you can also delete (which is what full control gives you.) Otherwise you may have to also do each top folder that way under PROPERTIES-SHARE.

You may as well not share the C: drive as it will just provide confusion since you will see it but can't access it at that level.
The other shared folders will show up even though they are on C: which you can't access................a little bit of MS logic.

Of course, the workgroup needs to be set the same on all systems. and other network settings must be valid. This is just why it doesn't work when you think you have done everything you are suppose to do.


I hope everyone reads this and can finally go to bed tonight.

[reliablesales]

i was having the same trouble yesterday and today.
i just right clicked on signal meter in bottom right hand corner and brought up my available connections. I then right each connection and removed them all. I restarted my computer and again right clicked my signal meter and when it opened I saw the name of my home network. I double clicked it and a window popped up asking for the password. SHAZZAM! it connected and everything is fine.

Hopefully it is this simple for everyone having this problem.

By removing and restarting it almost seem to work a the XP repair feature.

goodluck

[jtkstc]

I was checking this thread to see if my problem could be solved. I have a Windows 7 64 bit as the main system and a Windows XP Pro SP3 system as the other one. They run thru a Netgear WGR614v9 wireless router. The XP does not have a wireless connection so both connect thru Cat 5 cables. I had to turn off my Zonealarm firewall on the XP machine so I could get remote desktop running. Both belong to the same workgroup (THISONE) and all sharing options are on with full control but I cannot see the machines as workgroup computers or map shared drives to each other. Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks in advance.

[jwJones]

I tried just about every solution posted and still had the same problems: On Windows 7 computers could not view other Windows 7 machines and could not ping them; could not use the "Join Homegroup" option to create and join a homegroup; and could not see the other Windows 7 machines from my other Windows 7 machine.

The fix for me was simply to create a Homegroup on both Windows 7 computers idenpendently of the others and then to set the password of both Homegroups to the same password. Then I could share files between the computers and even see them on the Network Places area under My Computer.

I posted because hopefully this will help some of you looking for a solution to this problem. It is an elusive problem because it looks like a network problem when it is likely just a Windows 7 security protocol issue and is easily resolved by this workaround.

[Rekesz]

I have more or less the same issue. My computer and my laptop are connected by a cable (sry, don't know which type it is) without a router. I had Vista on the laptop and XP on the computer and I already had to work for about 2 hours just to get the network going and backup my files from the laptop. I thought that it won't get worse, but I simply can't make a network with Windos 7. The computer can see the laptop but can't access it, and the laptop won't even recognize the network. Any idea besides the ones already mentioned?

[zawy]

This is a summary of what I think I've learned concerning how to get Windows 7 and XP machines to see each others files. This is lowest-security approach to increase chances of getting it to work. You can modify the following for better security. There may be an error or three in this, which I hope someone will correct. Especially since it doesn't fix my problem.

Summary:
1) Ownership and Permissions of a folder
2) Sharing the folder
3) "Work" group, not "Home"
4) All PCs in same group

Part 1: get the folder's ownership and permissions right on the Windows 7 machine

1) make sure you own the folder: RtClk-properties-security-advanced-owner-edit (and make yourself the owner)
check "replace owner of subcontainers" to apply to all files and subfolders

2) "OK" the above to set everything and get out, then go back in to give "everyone" read/write permissions. Delete all the others like administrator which someone above said might cause a conflict:
a) RtClk-properties-security-advanced-permissions-change-permissions (if everyone is not in the list, click "add" and type "everyone" in the big box - "OK").
b) "Remove" all others, but remember how to use "add" as in a) above to get them back if necessary.
c) "Edit" "everyone" and give them all permissions.
d) uncheck "inherit parent permissions" to make sure it doesn't override what you want
e) check "replace child permissions" to apply to all files and subfolders

3) "OK" the above to get out and then go back in:
RtClk-properties-security. If "everyone" is not the only one listed or does not have all permissions, fix with "edit".

Part 2: Share the folder.
RtClk-properties-sharing. In both "share..." and "advanced sharing...->permissions" make sure "everyone" had read and write. Remove any others.

Part 3: Networking with XP: All XP and 7 computers you want to be able to see each other should be a "work" group and not a "home" or "public" group. "Home" is only if all computers are Windows 7.

1) Control Panel-network&sharing: under the bolded name of your group is an underlined link someone took a pic of above: click no it to change it to "work" instead of "home" or "public" if necessary.

2) Control Panel-network&sharing-ChangeAdvancedSharing set all the obvious settings there.

3) Control Panel-network&sharing-Firewall (i turned it off for now)

4) Control Panel-network&sharing-SetupNewConnection (this function is not completing for me)

Part 4: One Group Name All machines have to be in the same group. If On XP or 7, group name change can be done with:
Control Panel-system-advanced-computer name-change

Finished (supposedly)
========================

After doing all the above, my "group" disappeared from "network" in explorer on my windows 7 machine. It just shows itself and the shared folder, no group name, even though the group name shows in all other relevant locations. After rebooting it stopped my XP computers from seeing each other even though I did not change them and they've been working fine for months. The XP machines can see the group, but can't access it. The only way to see the XP machines from the Windows 7 machine was to use the trick mentioned above: start menu -> "\\192.168.1.102" and the XP PC showed up. Then I was able to use explorer-RtClk to map the XP folder to a letter on the Win 7. I'm using static IP addresses, so I'll be able to easily keep this one-way connection on reboot. So I can see and modify XP from Win 7 with smoe trickery, but not vice versa. I put apache on the Windows 7 machine which could be my problem since windows 7 networking uses port 80 which screws up Apache installs. But I selected 8080 for the apache. There was a point when most of it seemed to work, then stopped. Makes me wonder if hard networking with XP was intended. Kind of like when Office 7 word was not compatible with Word 6, forcing everyone wanting to share documents to upgrade. (Word 7 modifications to Word 6 files made them unviewable in Word 6 even when saved as a "word 6" document)

[zawy]

I just changed the name of the "group" (aka "workgroup" in XP) from "HOME" to "WORK" and everything is working now. I did that because "HOME" could have possibly been a reserved word in Windows 7 for "home networks" when it needs to be a "work network". But it was probably fixed because I rebooted all the computers.

I use static IP addresses internally because I like using VNC to view and control all PCs through the Firefox browser on any one of them. When I leave the house, I enabled port direction to the PCs through the router (low security) so that I can see and control any PC from my iPhone using a VNC app, or from any other PC that has a browser. It's often better to browse the internet with my iPhone by using VNC to view and control the browser on a PC at home! My 5 home PCs can be accessed from the internet with something like http://12.345.123.456:12345 where the last number is the port number recognized by the router to be for a specific PC and VNC on the PC is set to accept that port number. Then you enter a password which may or may not be encrypted in the java, and has no limit or log for login attempts so it is subject to brute force crack. Internally, it's something like http://192.168.1.101:12345 for the PC at static IP 192.168.1.101.

[Vawner]

zawy - many thanks!

I've been googling for two days to find the answer to my problem. My XP machine could access shares on my Win7 machine fine, but my Win7 machine could not even SEE the XP machine on the network.

Simply changing the characterization of the network from "Home" to "Work" fixed the problem. When one sets up a home/office network, the definitions are basically the same (i.e., computer you know and trust) and so there is no reason to select Work instead of Home when, as in this case, the network is actually in my home.

This seems another example of Microsoft's predilection for asinine moves and casual disregard for users - apparently they couldn't conceive of an environment in which a user may leave XP running on some machines in a network.

Thanks to you zawy I can move on until I encounter another Win7 hurdle.

[TopView]

... And have your "logon" account be the same as on the other computer[s], same password too,...

!!! Thanks ncRick. That did the trick here

BTW, I think Windows deep 7 has a bug in it. If you change the user name notice that the folder under Desktop|Network|<your machine name> holding your files, e.g. Users/Administrator, Users/Default, Users/<your user name>/AppData, Contacts, Desktop, etc. in your top level tree does not change to the new name. Right click on Users | Share with | Advanced sharing | Advanced Sharing (again) | uncheck 'share this folder. That will make the shared folders go away (temporally). Now go change your user name. When that's done log out and log back in. Then right click on some folder and 'share with homegroup' and that will restore all of the Users folders that you made go away. And the user name will now be correct. NOW try to access the files from the XP (which has same user name and password).