Windows 7 "Enter Network Password" issues. So frustrating!

[onmywayup]

Have done some searching on the forums, and can't quite find my situation solved.
I have a desktop PC running Windows 7.
I have an older PC laptop running XP.

Just tried to access laptop from the desktop through my home wifi. Got the dreaded "Enter Network Password" dialogue.

Using instructions from other posts, I setup and entered in a password in the "Change homegroup settings" window.

Discovered, again from the forums here, that Windows XP doesn't give a crap about homegroups. Now I am having a very hard time figuring out what password and username Windows 7 can possibly be asking for when I attempt to access files on the laptop?

I understand ( I believe) that it is asking for some username and password set up on the TARGET machine (the laptop), not my PC. But I recently re-installed XP on the laptop and specifically setup no passwords of any kind, although I did created an admin account called "Brian" (my name).

Help? Where to find target machine username and password?

 

[Saltgrass]

You are correct, only Windows knows about homegroups. If you only have one Windows 7 computer, then you do not need to be in a homegroup and you should leave it.

Are both the computers using the same workgroup? You will probably need to setup a user on you XP machine the same as the other machine. If may work without that, but it will probably ask for a login since you are not an authorized user.

Can you ping the XP machine from the desktop? Can you open Explorer and type "ComputerName" or
the IP address preceded by two backslashes to find and list it on your network. Do you have something "Shared" on the XP machine?

The XP machine may need to have additional software installed to allow for network discovery Link Removed due to 404 Error