Windows 7 Networking Problem with Windows 7 Prof seeing Windows XP home

Andrew Grandin

New Member
I have been through multiple forums and tried everything I can think of to fix this problem. I am setting up a new home network with 4 computers (3 laptops and 1 desktop). 2 Laptops are running Windows Vista connecting via wireless, 1 laptop running Windows 7 connecting via wireless, and the Desktop is running Windows XP connecting via hard wire to the wireless router. My ultimate goal is to allow all 4 computers to print to one printer connected to the desktop.
Currently, the 2 Vista computers and the desktop with XP can see all 4 computers on the network and all 3 print just fine.
The problem, the laptop running Windows 7 can only see itself and the 2 computers running Vista. I can "Ping" the XP computer from the Win7 Computer, but I cannot get it to recognize the XP computer. I have changed my home/work settings on the Win7 PC to allow for sharing, lowered encryption requirements, turned off firewalls (for testing), verified workgroups are identical, made my wireless connection a "work" connection, and deleted any "homegroups". I may have done a few more things but I can't remember them off hand.
I am not sure what else to try. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Andrew G
 
Andrew:
Hello and welcome to the forums.
When you type
\\TheXpMachineName
or
\\TheXpMachine'sIpAddress
into the search or run dialog box what happens.
You didn't mention what printer (you'll need to download and extract the appropriate drivers for your version of Win7 (32 or 64 bit)) you are attempting to connect to but you may want to try the Local Printer head fake and see if that works.
Open Devices and Printers
Select add printer near the top menu bar
Select add local printer
Choose Create a new port and local port from drop down arrow Click Next
In the enter a port name do one of the following
1. \\MachineNameHostingPrinter\Printer'sShareName or
2. \\ipaddressOfMachineHostingPrinter\Printer'sShareName
In the install printer driver dialog box do one of the following
1. In the left panel select your printer manufacturer and in the right panel select your printer model (to use Win7 native drivers) or
2. Select the have disk button and direct the install process to the folder where you have download and extracted the Win 7 drivers for your printer.
 
Thanks for the quick reply, I did try that as well. It will not come up for either the name or the IP address. I do know about having to load the printer driver, I just haven't done it yet because I haven't been able to successfully connect. I can successfully do that from the XP machine to the Win7 though.
Andrew G
 
Thanks for the quick reply, I did try that as well. It will not come up for either the name or the IP address. I do know about having to load the printer driver, I just haven't done it yet because I haven't been able to successfully connect. I can successfully do that from the XP machine to the Win7 though.
Andrew G
Are you saying that when you type in either
\\XpMachineName
or
\\XpIpAddress
nothing happens. No error message, no access denied, nothing?
 
It does have an error message: "Windows cannot access \\XpMachineName" and gives the option for "diagnose". When I diagnose it can't identify the problem.
 
Typically that message is a product of some type of third party firewall (Comodo, ZoneAlarm, etc.) and or some type of third party internet security suite (Norton/Symantec, McAfee, AVG, etc.) running on the XP machine that is preventing the network communication because it is seeing the attempt to access the shares from the Win7 machine as an intrusion by a network node that has not been trusted. Please either familiarize yourself with how to configure the software to support trusts from new network nodes or else uninstall any such software and replace it with Link Removed due to 404 Error and the builtin Windows firewall. Additionally you may also need to follow up the removal of the security software with its' own vendor specific uninstaller/removal tool to make sure that there is no remaining remnants of the product left on the machine. There is a list of some of them located here http://windows7forums.com/blue-screen-death-bsod/50402-removal-tools-antivirus-software-drivers.html .
Finally and I'm not sure if this has anything to do with the issue since you seem to be indicating that the XP Home machine can share resources with the other two Vista machines, but you might want to read this article anyway just in case.
You receive an "Access is denied" error message when you try to access shares on a Windows XP Home Edition-based computer that is connected to a network
 
Hmm, I tried the fix from the article, but there is no change. Very interesting though, I didn't know that about XP. As far as the firewall is concerned, I am only running Windows Firewall on all the machines, I have also tried to disable it without change. As far as I am aware, Windows Firewall is designed to easily allow for sharing. In relation to the antivirus software. On both the windows 7 and XP I am using AVG. I cannot see this being the issue because I can connect to the Win7 from both Vista Machines. Am I off base there?
 
I am actually having a new symptom. I can see the Vista Computers from Win7 but can not access them...same error message as if I tried to connect to \\XpMachineName
 
Hmm, I tried the fix from the article, but there is no change. Very interesting though, I didn't know that about XP. As far as the firewall is concerned, I am only running Windows Firewall on all the machines, I have also tried to disable it without change. As far as I am aware, Windows Firewall is designed to easily allow for sharing. In relation to the antivirus software. On both the windows 7 and XP I am using AVG. I cannot see this being the issue because I can connect to the Win7 from both Vista Machines. Am I off base there?

Short answer, yes.
I have chased similar problems literally hundreds of times. While I can not promise and swear that in all instances removing products like or rather exactly like AVG and then running the proprietary removal tool has 100% of the time produced favorable results, I can tell you that it has often proved beneficial in moving the diagnostic dialog forward. I have never ever understood the reluctance in removing these types of products, if you are using the free version or even the paid for commercial version (if you still have your product key associated with your license) you can always reinstall them and all it costs is a few minutes of your time. I can also tell you that one of the most problematic among such programs is AVG and if you don't uninstall it and then run the removal tool also it's very likely that you will not really be able to be sure that it is not the problem. It seems very troublesome and resistant to a completely clean uninstall and attempting to disable them is a complete waste of your time and effort. The decision is yours so you decide.
There are also other third party products including network management utilities like "Network Magic", all good products, I'm not here to bash any of them. But if you don't know how to add trusted nodes to a piece of software that is protecting and managing your network or just forget to, then these types of problems can be crazy hard to resolve. Also hardware devices and applicance present on the network or again software products can block ports and protocols needed to support networking, and well as filter and block MAC addresses, even XP itself supports TCP/IP filtering.
My guess is that it's software and it's likely to be a piece of software that was present/in-place and active before the New Windows 7 node was added to the network.
 
Double check you router or whatever is providing DHCP IP addressing information for your network. Determine what the lease time is for the IP addresses that it is handing out and increase it. Try increasing it to 24 hours or even two days and see if that helps stablize anything. Check the properties of IPv4 on the properties of each NIC on each machine and under the advanced button->WINS tab, make sure that you enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP and open the services console by typing services.msc into the search or run dialog box and hit enter and scroll down to the TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper service, double click it, set the startup type to automatic and start it.
 
Do you have the same problem as me: the sharing works after boot, but other machines disappear
after (seemingly) random time? Applies only to the Windows 7 machine, not Vista or XP.
Even if you have a shared directory open in the "file damager". Refreshing suddenly brings the
"windows cannot access..."-error.
 
turboscrew:
Hello and welcome to the forums.
I have seen some reports of Link Removed - Invalid URL to other network nodes, especially XP machines, but perhaps Vista machines as well. Have a look at this article and see if will help you in your particular case. It's a unique and elusive problem but this solution has helped some. There are two registry keys that are suggested you edit so of course, whenever editing the registry....back it up, export the key before making changes and create a manual restore point just in case.
Good luck
Randy
 
The article seems to be for the opposite situation. I think I and Andrew have similar problem in that it's
an older Windows version that shares stuff (directories, printer) and Windows 7 is the client that
"cannot access...". Between the older Windows versions, the sharing works fine.
 
Turboscrew,
I don't necessarily think that we have the same problem, but maybe similar. I am unable to see the XP machine at anytime, re-boot or not.
 
I had a hint in another forum that might be helpful: Try the 7-day trial version of Cisco Network Magic.
It might show something.

Link Removed - Invalid URL
 
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