Windows 7 No Sharing, No Homegroups, but Yes RDP and Internet.

ZachPA

Honorable Member
So, this has absolutely dumbfounded me. I cannot get file sharing or homegroups to work at all, no matter what i try.

I have two computers, a desktop HTPC and a laptop. Both are connected by cat-5e. Both are Windows 7 RC. Both enjoy full internet connectivity with all programs and all protocols. Both see each other via Network Discovery and both are visible in the Network Map.

I use Remote Desktop to connect from the Laptop to the HTPC, and vice versa, and it works perfectly. While doing this, i have full server access to the client's drives and full ability to move and share files through RDP only.

I have taken the laptop to work and it connects to shares just fine, as well as sharing files with other computers just fine. The other computers at work are Windows XP and Windows 2000. This leads me to believe the problem is only the HTPC.

Back at home, neither computer will talk to each other while trying to file share. The HTPC and laptop both come back with an Error 0x80070035 'Network Path Not Found'. Also, while setting up Homegroups, the laptop insists the password is wrong when it tries to join an HTPC-started Homegroup, and the HTPC coughs up a generic 'Homegroup encountered an error' when trying to join a laptop-started Homegroup. Incidentally, they can both see that the other one has begun a homegroup

I have tried...

* Changing IP settings (v4 and v6), currently DHCP-assigned based on MAC addr
* Trying multiple network adapters (2 wired, 1 wireless on HTPC; 1 wired, 2 wireless on laptop)
* Turning off and disabling unused network adapters
* Switching network locations from Home to Work, currently Home
* Turning off and on IPv6, currently on
* Turning off Firewall on both HTPC and laptop
* Turning on Firewall and creating rules for file & printer sharing, currently allowing all inbound & outbound for sharing
* Ensuring that all the Netbios settings are correct
* Making sure that all routing and other services were started
* Editing Policies to set every permutation of LAN Manager, currently LM & NTLM - negotiate v2
* Rebooting both HTPC and laptop incessantly, as well as router and bridge
* Cursing at the HTPC, currently not cursing as i have lost my voice


I am 99% certain that this problem exists on the HTPC and not the laptop, so my efforts have been mainly focused on the HTPC. As said earlier, the laptop performs as expected at work. Also, the laptop just got clean-installed to 7 RC, though this problem affected the laptop while it was still Vista.

This problem reared its ugly head beginning shortly after a clean-install of 7 RC x64 to the HTPC. This did not occur Vista-Vista, or 7000-Vista, only RC-Vista and RC-RC.

Normally a problem like this with the obvious workaround of using RDP to transfer files wouldn't bother me so much, but i use Acronis to back up the laptop nightly to the HTPC, and it cannot as long as file sharing isn't available.

The error code 0x80070035 doesn't seem to be specific to 7; Vista has it too, though Homegroup issues are definitely a 7 problem.

I have come across a hodge-podge of information about this problem with those solutions listed above, as well as others tried and not tried. I am certain that i am forgetting some of the things i have tried to fix this in the list above. There doesn't seem to be one great repository of fixes for this issue, and there doesn't seem to be one true fix for everyone's problem. Also, Microsoft doesn't seem to be acknowledging this issue at all in Vista or 7.

Hopefully someone here will have a solution!

Thanks.
 
Can you verify that the time is correctly set on both of the pc's?

I found out the hard way that both machines need to be synchronised with the Windows time server before the guest machine will accept the homegroup password.
I would never had work that out if I hadnt click the homegroup troubleshoot button, if you havent done that yet try it.
 
Can you verify that the time is correctly set on both of the pc's?

Yep, that was one of the first things i checked actually, i just forgot that i did because they were both accurate.

Update:

Last night, briefly, i got things working by using IP's instead of computer names (i.e. \\192.168.94.44) and it was working great. So, i mapped a drive to it and set up Acronis to do its thing.

Unfortunately, during the night sometime, everything decided to break itself again. And, now, to top it all off, laptop doesn't talk to HTPC at all. Ping reports destination unreachable, while HTPC can ping the laptop just fine.

I know enough TCP/IP so this issue will be fixed soon enough. Firewalls get turned off. Settings become uber-static instead of quasi-static through a smart DHCP router, etc.

I am an experienced networker, i've been doing the networking thing for 15 years, since packet drivers and NDIS drivers were required to get TCP/IP working on that brand new ISA 10 Mbps NE2000-based card that required hard-IRQs and addresses in DOS and Windows 3.11. The fact that 7 is giving me all these troubles means it is definitely not ready for prime-time yet.
 
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I have two computers, a desktop HTPC and a laptop. Both are connected by cat-5e. Both are Windows 7 RC. Both enjoy full internet connectivity with all programs and all protocols.
Thanks.

I have exactly the same problem, except it is a RC 7 to XP wireless set up, as described in my other post here;
http://windows7forums.com/windows-7-networking/6248-netgear-problem.html

My XP pc, can see the 7 machine, but not the other way, and does not have access to it. I have also tried all the suggestions here, if anyone has any other suggestions please let me know.
 
The only thing i've been able to do is to use by IP. So, instead of typing \\SOMETHING to get to a PC, i type \\10.10.10.3. That works for now. Still, no homegroups.
 
I have a network of 4, two PC's & two laptops. The main PC is running XP sp3 & is wired to a Buffalo Air Station, the other three are running Windows 7 RC. These three have FULL wireless access to & from the PC running XP. Also I am able access the Air Station from them.
The three 7RC units are home network & same Homegroup password.

On the three wireless units from "windows explorer- Network" I am able to see from each one, the other two.
If I try to connect I get "Windows cannot access \\NAME, the error is always "0x80070035 The network path was not found"

The same result if I come out of the homegroup.
If you follow the error back to Microsoft it seems to lead to servers & registry hacks, so I'm still serching.
 
I have the same problem. I was able to access the files from the network icon before leaving on a trip. After I returned and reconnected the laptop to the network, I could no longer access its files from the network or the homegroup. I don't know if the homegroup was set up correctly previously. I keep getting the error message: that windows cannot access the machine. Diagnostics indicate machine is on with print and file sharing enabled.
 
I have the same problem. I was able to access the files from the network icon before leaving on a trip. After I returned and reconnected the laptop to the network, I could no longer access its files from the network or the homegroup. I don't know if the homegroup was set up correctly previously. I keep getting the error message: that windows cannot access the machine. Diagnostics indicate machine is on with print and file sharing enabled.
pdougmc:
Not sure if you noticed but you tagged on to the end of a thread that is began 7 months ago and the last post prior to yours was 1 day short of being 6 months old. You may not get much attention and might be more successful starting a new thread, being as specific as possible about your problem issues and filling out your system specs in your control panel (top of thread or forum far left says "User CP". I would like to help but not sure what I can get out of "I have the same problem", I don't believe that there was a solution in this thread, so starting your own might work better for you....If you are talking about having the same problem as the OP, my help for him or her would have been to uninstall all third party firewall products, along with all third party Internet Security Suites and AntiVirus products and see if the problem persists.
 
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