Windows 7 Can't see other computers on my network

[ArtServo]

My new windows 7 computer can't see most of the other computers on my network. Only the one running Vista is visible. It saw the network yesterday, but wont even prompt me for my password today. A profile application run on the new machine can see the network. Please advise.

 

[ArtServo]

I tried several suggestions I found in other posts, and the only one that worked for me was to type the name of the device I am trying to access in the address bar. (That, perhaps in combination with something else I did.) I was prompted for the pass word, and then I had it. That computer was added to my Network. There are 43 devices on my network, and I would prefer not to have to type their names each time I want to access. Is there a fix for this or is that why the XP downgrade cost more that a new computer with 7?

 

[Trouble]

Make sure the following services are running and set to automatic on all machines.
1. Computer Browser
2. DHCP Client unless you are manually assigning static ip addresses to your machine
3. DNS Client unless you have manually assigned static DNS server addresses on you machine
4. Server
5. TCP/IP Netbios helper
6. Workstation
7. Look for Bonjour service and temporarily set it to manual or disable and stop. Also check services near the top for a
peculiar string containing numbers and or special characters, something like this
"##Id_String2.6844F930_1628_4223_B5CC_5BB94B87 9762 ##" disable and stop.
8. Make sure all machines have the same workgroup name "Workgroup" is fine.
9. All network nodes must be unique, make sure there are no machine name conflicts.
10. Make sure Network Discovery is turned on, on the Win 7 machines
11. Under the network and sharing center, change “Advanced Sharing Settings” intelligently to suit your needs. Turn on
network discovery, turn on file and printer sharing, turn on pulic folder sharing, turn off password protected sharing,
and at the bottom Use user accounts and passwords to connect to other computers.
12. If your problem is with down level clients like XP and Vista and your Windows 7 machine is in a homegroup, leave it
and disable IPv6 in the properties of your network adapter.
13. Make sure NetBios over TCP/IP is enabled in the properties of IPv4 under the WINS tab on youe network adapter.

 

[Scooter]

Huh??????????

make sure the following services are running and set to automatic on all machines.
1. Computer browser
2. Dhcp client unless you are manually assigning static ip addresses to your machine
3. Dns client unless you have manually assigned static dns server addresses on you machine
4. Server
5. Tcp/ip netbios helper
6. Workstation
7. Look for bonjour service and temporarily set it to manual or disable and stop. Also check services near the top for a
peculiar string containing numbers and or special characters, something like this
"##id_string2.6844f930_1628_4223_b5cc_5bb94b87 9762 ##" disable and stop.
8. Make sure all machines have the same workgroup name "workgroup" is fine.
9. All network nodes must be unique, make sure there are no machine name conflicts.
10. Make sure network discovery is turned on, on the win 7 machines
11. Under the network and sharing center, change “advanced sharing settings” intelligently to suit your needs. Turn on
network discovery, turn on file and printer sharing, turn on pulic folder sharing, turn off password protected sharing,
and at the bottom use user accounts and passwords to connect to other computers.
12. If your problem is with down level clients like xp and vista and your windows 7 machine is in a homegroup, leave it
and disable ipv6 in the properties of your network adapter.
13. Make sure netbios over tcp/ip is enabled in the properties of ipv4 under the wins tab on youe network adapter.

I can see and get into my W7 machine from two others on my LAN (a PowerMac and an iMac) but W7 cant "Find A Path" to even see any of the others.
PS. I'm running a LAN with 2 Mac's and 2 PC's The Mac's just automatically saw the others on the LAN. It's the PC's that cant find a "Path" to the others. That's the wording on the fail notice. "Can't Find A Path". the XP machine is in another part of the house and only used by guests so I don't really mind it not reading the others drives. BUT it sure would be nice to be able to get in and out of all of them EASILY from any machine in the house. Not just Shared folders (what a waste) but deep into each other.

 

[ArtServo]

I checked, and everything that you listed is activated. I turned off Bonjour. No change. Thanks for the help, T, but I wont be able to change all of the settings for all of my networked computers, 12 of which are Macs. Never had a problem until 7. Planning on switching to a domain soon, anyway. We will try to deal with it for now, but such issues out of the box make me wonder what goes on at MS. My Macs are sooooo much easier to work with. Thanks

 

[ArtServo]

In fairness, the second computer I set up had no problem seeing the network, and I was able to access the few devices that I needed to. And I did learn a new way to set up a network printer using a local port. They are both the same specs, right out of the box, so I don't know why the difference. I am setting up the third of these today, hopefully it will go smoothly.

 

[Scooter]

I agree Art. I'm a "Master Printer" retired (35years of my own shops), and also sit on the local community college's steering committee for their Graphic Arts Department. The Macs just work first time every time. Being in the Graphic Arts business they are, of course, the Industry Standard for the printing/publishing industry. I used both in my shops to be able to manipulate customer PC generated files to Mac format for typesetting, copyfitting and Computer to Plate make ready for Press. I've not had much problem with networking the two platforms until W7. Now that I'm retired I have all of these computers sitting aropund and wanted to do the home link-up thing. In total I have 3 Mac's, 1 PowerMac (my print shop's workhorse) and 2 iMacs (1 designer and 1 office records). 2 PC's, 1 Top of the line HP Media Center (main conversion PC>Mac unit) and a cheapo eMachine (for customer disk/file entry to attempt to isolate any virii meanies outside the company's workstations).
I've stopped trying to get the PC's to see the Macs, or each other for that matter. As long as my PowerMac can get deep into all the others on my LAN, manipulate, grab and drop files where I want them that's enough for me at this point.
I'll be patient until there is a "simple" solution to this problem.

OMG, I used the Verboten Words here. M*a*c. Even alluding that they are ***hush my mouth*** easier to set up networking with. Flame away!!!!!!!

 

[Trouble]

ArtServo:
If your issue is a problem with PC to PC access, try taking a look at any third party software that may be running on the machines that you are not able to access. If you have any type of firewall product and or Internet Security Suites running on these computers you may want to either uninstall the software (my personal favorite, since you can always reinstall it later) or investigate how you can include the new Windows 7 machines into their (the software's) respective trusted network (by ip address, or netbios name).
This works in both directions too, if you are having trouble accessing the Windows 7 machines from other Microsoft Clients on the network, take a look and see if they came pre-installed with Nortons, McAfee, etc.

 

[stueycaster]

Every time I ever had a problem with networking W7 and XP the problem was always with XP. W7 and Vista just work. You might need to reset the network in the XP machines. I could always jump start the network connection by using the IP Addresses. Now I don't have to deal with XP any more. Happy Days .

 

[Scooter]

I guess I'm the other way round. Although there are some really really neat gimmicks in W7. And a eye candy GUI I like. The ease of finding things in XP is gone. So much has been burried Sooooooo deep in W7 that it's virtually impossible to find where to change settings. Still can't get XP or W7 to see or connect with the rest of my LAN. or even each other. My iMac can see them and connect to them to transfer files back and forth, but it can't mount my PowerMac. HAL, my PowerMac can see everyone and get into every computer on the LAN and transfer files back and forth, modify files on the XP, W7 and iMac. Even down to system level. I still dunno just what happened, nor does it matter at this point. HAL is my main, most powerful machine on the LAN so it's fitting the he run everything (see "2001 a space odyssey" and "2010 year we make contact"). So as HAL tells me when I power him up. "I'm Completely Operational and All My Curcuits Are Functioning Perfectly". I can get in and out of every machine and that's all that matters now. Maybe later I'll go spelunking into the W7 machine and see if I can find why it won't connect. Right now I have the PowerMac and the W7 towers sitting side by side next to me and both monitors side by side. It's working well enough for me now.

 

[stueycaster]

I've never had a Mac so I can't say how networking them goes but nobody has mentioned the LM, NTLM or NTLMv2 protocols in this thread. I think Win7 is using the latest protocol and maybe OSX will need to be set to accept it. Or vice-versa maybe. I wish I definitely knew so I could help out here. This is just a thought.

 

[Scooter]

I've never had a Mac so I can't say how networking them goes but nobody has mentioned the LM, NTLM or NTLMv2 protocols in this thread. I think Win7 is using the latest protocol and maybe OSX will need to be set to accept it. Or vice-versa maybe. I wish I definitely knew so I could help out here. This is just a thought.

I really don't have much of a clue when you mention LM, NTLM or NTLMv2. In my shops I just used a firewire cable between the Macs and Taa-Daa network. I was really confused when I couldn't find any mention of FireWire about PCs. After reading I figured out that PCs call it IEEEEEEEEEEEEEE1398 or 89 or something. My friends also refer to Ethernet cables as RJ45 cables. I always look at them a bit odd and ask "You mean Ethernet?" My shop network between the PC's and Macs were mostly done via floppydisk way back in the day (before 2000 when Mac did away with all floppy drives). Then I used CD's to transfer most data. It didn't really matter about virii between the PC and Mac. Mac can transfer them to other PCs but they have no effect on Macs. I was EXTREMELY concerned about transfering Virii between my customer use PC and my Conversion PC. SO I ran some sort of virus software after each customer and file input. Found a LOT of them. I'm not a fan of Norton (resource HOG) or McAfee either (takes FOREVER to run) but They were pretty much the only games in town back then. I now run VirIT on the PC's. Still don't have any virus software at all on the Macs. But this all has nothing to do with my networking problems. I installed DAVE on HAL and it want's me to enter a "Domain" to create the 2 way connect with the PCs. I don't have a clue what it's looking for. I always thought a Domain was a WAN or Internet server thing, not used by a couple machines connected in the house. So I'm baffled as to what to put in the box. For now I just ignore the whole DAVE thing and just let the Macs do their thing. Problem there is that my iMac can't connect to HAL either. At least my main man, HAL is able to drag and drop files and movies and DMG, ISO files anywhere on any other machine on the LAN. even into the "Program Files" folder. I can put desktops (wallpapers) down into Windows>Web>Wallpaper from HAL. Even see all of the invisable system files on all machines. I can delete things from all of them also. So really I have pretty much what I was trying to set up. The biggest problem is that I have to go from one end of the h0use to the other to get a file from one of the other machines, since I can't connect to anyone else except thru HAL. I can see this becoming a problem later on as my health continues to fail. It won't be long before I'm stuck in my bed with only HAL to connect to anyone anywhere. Lugging my Oxy bottle around from system to system is getting to me.
I'm really sorry for causing this problem here. As I think of it, I probably shouldn't even have joined in the first place. Thanx Guys anyway.