Vista Premium won't see XP computers on the network

[tachi1247]

I have two separate locations where I am having the same problem. At both my parent's and my girlfriend's homes there is a laptop running vista home premium sp1 which is connected wirelessly and a desktop running XP pro sp3 hardwired into the wireless router. At one location I've got an Acer laptop that can't see a home built comp running XP pro and at the other I have a new Toshiba laptop that can't see a dell running xp pro. One location is running WEP encryption and the other is running WPA2.

I've already google searched it and the best i could find was to install "LLTD" from microsoft, but when I try to do it it says it's already included in the service pack and aborts the install. turning off all the firewalls doesn't make a difference.:screwy:

The XP computers can see the laptops (but not access any shared files...separate vista issue) but not the other way around. They are both in the same workgroup.

Besides being annoying in general, I need to get this fixed because the printers at both locations is connected to the XP computer and therefore I can't print because the laptop can't find the printer since it doesn't find the computer it is hooked up to.:bang head

Anyone have some ideas on other things to try?

[gangaskan]

I have two separate locations where I am having the same problem. At both my parent's and my girlfriend's homes there is a laptop running vista home premium sp1 which is connected wirelessly and a desktop running XP pro sp3 hardwired into the wireless router. At one location I've got an Acer laptop that can't see a home built comp running XP pro and at the other I have a new Toshiba laptop that can't see a dell running xp pro. One location is running WEP encryption and the other is running WPA2.

I've already google searched it and the best i could find was to install "LLTD" from microsoft, but when I try to do it it says it's already included in the service pack and aborts the install. turning off all the firewalls doesn't make a difference.:screwy:

The XP computers can see the laptops (but not access any shared files...separate vista issue) but not the other way around. They are both in the same workgroup.

Besides being annoying in general, I need to get this fixed because the printers at both locations is connected to the XP computer and therefore I can't print because the laptop can't find the printer since it doesn't find the computer it is hooked up to.:bang head

Anyone have some ideas on other things to try?



can you get to it via using \\computername or \\ipaddresss?


another thing you can try is disabling windows firewall on the xp machine, and making sure user accounts match on each of the computers.

[tachi1247]

i will try accessing via IP address tonight.

turning off the firewall didn't help any.

The user accounts do not match, but i was under the impression that that didn't matter for showing up on the network. If i want to be able to share files between the two then i need the accounts to match, but if i just want to share the printer this isn't necessary.

[UglyChild]

On Vista Computers do this; Under NIC Properties, disable TCP/IPV6.

Then Go in to TCP/IPV4 > advanced > WINS > NetBIOS Settings > Make sure its set to - Default.

And make sure Printer and File Sharing is Enabled.

Edit; You dont need matching User Accounts. Just as long as its on the same Workgroup. You can even disable password authentication.

[tachi1247]

On Vista Computers do this; Under NIC Properties, disable TCP/IPV6.

Then Go in to TCP/IPV4 > advanced > WINS > NetBIOS Settings > Make sure its set to - Default.

And make sure Printer and File Sharing is Enabled.

Edit; You dont need matching User Accounts. Just as long as its on the same Workgroup. You can even disable password authentication.

Thanks I'll try it tonight.

[SuperMotarded]

I'd make sure you have network discovery and file sharing on in the Network and Sharing center. Should looke like this:

http://i631.photobucket.com/albums/uu32/supermotarded/netsharecenter.jpg

Located here: Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network and Sharing Center

Also, all PCs have the same workgroup, correct?

[tachi1247]

no luck with the ivp6 advice.

Network discovery and sharing are all on.

[UglyChild]

And NetBios is set as default on both Vista and XP computers? Both PC's have all the latest updates?

[Trombe]

But don't you feel more secure now?


Anyway, I had this problem before, and I even tried connecting the computers via crossover cable with no luck. What did work was loading a linux live cd on the Vista machine and then making the connection to the Xp machine. Worked liked a charm, after figuring out how to mount the hdd.

[medo145]

Install this on the xp machine
http://www.microsoft.com/DOWNLOADS/details.aspx?familyid=4F01A31D-EE46-481E-BA11-37F485FA34EA&displaylang=en

[UglyChild]

Install this on the xp machine
http://www.microsoft.com/DOWNLOADS/details.aspx?familyid=4F01A31D-EE46-481E-BA11-37F485FA34EA&displaylang=en

It wont work if you have SP3.

Im going through same issue right now with my laptop that i havent used in ages.


Edit.

Disabling Firewall on XP laptop seems to partially solve the issue.


edit 2;

On ALL PC's, XP and Vista, NetBios has to be ON by default, other wise it wont work. And you can have Firewall ON as well.

Also make sure Server service is running on all your PC's.

p.s.
Any time you make any changes, reboot both computers.

[=ACID RAIN=]

I had this problem with vista and the XP print server, after I updated XP to SP3. Firewall service was disabled as usual, both on the same domain etc. Put XP on the vista box. Solved.

[Neuromancer]

It is actually much simpler.

Open network and sharing center, under your lan connection you have to set it to Private, otherwise network discovery is disabled (you will notice that if you have a public network you can set Network discovery to on, but after restart it is off again)

If after setting it up you can see but cant access the files, this is more difficult you have to go into security tab on the root of the drive and add users (Everyone works) and give full control to allow read write powers.


One nice thing in Vista is once you get file sharing setup you can see and access computers from any workgroup (you can in XP too but not as easily IIRC)