[alsires]

XP Laptop with all updates and files shared can ping but can't see Vista. Firewall is off on Vista and all the file sharing attributes are enabled on the Vista. Several files and drives are shared.

Can't access printer attached to Vista, can't access files, but can ping. Vista can access all files on XP.

Help please.

[jmwills]

Did you enable Printer and File Sharing on your network card by going to My Network Connecions > Right-click > Properties > Network card name > Right-click > Properties > File and Printer Sharing > check-mark > OK.



Type the PC name on your Vista laptop under Start > Run (WinKey+R) > \\Pcname > OK, and it should load the PC name in a window.

[JohnWill]

Windows XP And Vista On The LAN Together

[alsires]

I noticed in "My network places" that about the time I had difficulties with connections (I had connection to the Vista and then lost it and I am not sure why) "MNP" suddenly didn't list the locations on the network, not even the ones on the XP that I am using to open "MNP" So, there is no network discovery on the xp at all, even though the computer does connect to the internet and can ping the vista.

[alsires]

see previous post

[jmwills]

Within the Vista Network and Sharing Center, is your network listed as Public or Private? If Public, change it to private, reboot and see if you can now share.

[alsires]

already Private...

[glnathkama]

I have been ready with interest as i have (had) exactly the same problem. I had a new computer and had to go to my Mcafee firewall program and disable the firewall, even though i had not registered or used the program yet. once i did that i could acess my vista computer and use attached printers, etc. Hope it's as simple for you.

[jmwills]

Okay, I went back to an old machine we have running Vista Home Basic and played with the networking and sharing aspect for a few minutes. It wasn't that hard to share out an entire drive if you understand a couple of principles.

Vista wants two types of permissions, one for the Share and another for the files/folders that lie within the Shared folder. Each account you want to have access MUST have a user account with a password on the Vista machine in order to share it. I imagine the permisisons are just like any other, the lesser of the two will take precendence. This means that if you only give Read permissions on the share that will be all anyone will be able to do because the lesser permission will override a full access to the file. Make sense? You must think of permissions in two stages. One set for the share and one set for the files.

This means that if yo uonly set permisssions on the share and none for the files within the shared resource, you will get an Access Denied error. My guess is this is where everyone is falling short by only setting permissions on the share.

In my example, I shared out a D drive the Vista machine and that was the name (D) given to the share. The hidden Admin share of D$ no longer exists within Vista for security reasons. Click the advanced button and this is where you chnage the permissions on the share you just created. By default, the Everyone permission will have Ready only Access. Add the Users or Groups who need access to the share and what their permissiosn should be. For home use, give them full control.

Next click the Security tab and this is where you set the permisisons for the files within the share. By default, the owner of those files will have full access. If the user you need to share files with is not listed, you will have to create a user account on the Vista machine in order to share or use the "Everyone" permission, whihc I discourage.

You must make sure of two things up front. #1 is to assure that you have enabled File & Print Sharing in the network center and alos on the network card. Unless you have a need for IPv6, turn if off.

This took me all of about 10 minutes to.

[alsires]

jmwills... I tried what you said for the vista, but when I went to share the files, not just the folders, the computer said "Your files have not been shared." I had file and printer sharing enabled on both network cards, so that is not the problem. I don't know where else to work. I disabled and removed Norton (don't like it anyway, will put on AVG as soon as I am done typing here). The thing that kills me is that it was working! And now it's not! And I don't know why, because I certainly didn't change any network or printer settings in the mean time!!!

[jmwills]

What are the Permissions on the Share and the folder inside the share? Is sharing enabled at the Network & Sharing center also?

[JohnWill]

The default for Vista is to inhibit file sharing if the user account has no password. Try putting a password on the user account.

[alsires]

going out of town for 3 days... please don't drop the thread. I need to fix this before the end of next week or I will have growing problems.

[alsires]

networking and share center has all set to allow the share. and inside the permissions, they are all set to all three permissions (read, and whatever the other two are). As for the user account, yes, there is a password.

[JohnWill]

On each machine, let's see this:

Start, Run, CMD to open a command prompt:

Type the following command:

nbtstat -n

Right click in the command window and choose Select All, then hit Enter.
Paste the results in a message here.

If you are on a machine with no network connection, use a floppy, USB disk, or a CD-RW disk to transfer a text file with the information to allow pasting it here.