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Problem: I can't understand how to get a W7-64 machine into an XP-32 network

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cranioscopical:
Friends, I could really use some help (a lot of people tell me that)!

The issueLately, I've been wrestling with a slew of failures on my main computer. I'm up against a nasty deadline so I decided to buy my way out with a new personal machine. This took me from XP-32 to Win 7-64.

My problem is coaxing the new W7 machine onto my small home network of XP-32 SP3 machines.

To say that I'm not good with network stuff is akin to saying that the world economy is slightly imperfect.
 

The grovellingBetween wrestling with a flaky machine and setting up a new one from scratch I'm just plain lost. Then terminology is different and my internet connection so slow that looking up material on line takes for ever (>30 seconds here, just to move between pages).

I have received good tips and pointers to reference documents from knowledgeable and goodhearted friends (thanks 40hz, Target). That ought to be enough: not so! Now I'm publicly humiliating myself in the hopes of:
* Being treated with the tolerance required by a simpleton
* Being led to a solution
* Leaving a trail that might help some other poor unfortunate
So far, I seem to have convinced W7 that my wireless network is my wired connection and vice versa.

Has anyone the time and patience to take me by the hand and walk me through this before I manage to disable every machine that I have?

I was hoping to find the light but I must have taken the road to Damascus — I just can't see!

Shades:
You have to adjust some network settings on the Win7 PC, so the other PC's can access it.

All (LAN) network communication is encrypted, Win7 uses by default 128-bits encryption, while XP (and lower) uses 56-bits variant. This is easily adjusted (advanced settings from the networking profile 'home'/'work' or 'public').

Fred Langa has an article on the Windowssecrets.com site where he explains some settings that will increase the speed from networking noticably by disabling HomeGroup (which is useful on Win7-only networks anyway).

Do not forget that Microsoft did it on purpose to setup default values that make it hard to use Win7 in heterogeneous networks. Some of these default values make sense, some really don't.

cranioscopical:
Thanks, Shades.

I read that article (and others) confident that all would be well.
Things didn't happen as I expected, I couldn't find other machines.
I need someone to help me walk through the specific settings, step by step  :( :-[ :-[ :-[

Shades:
You should find out the IP(v4) number from each of your PC's in the network. (open dos-box and type the command 'IPCONFIG /all')
Normally those start with 192.168.x.x or 10.0.x.x. Disable any firewalls for the time being.

Then go the Win7 PC and open explorer or your favorite file manager and type '\\192.168.x.x'. The explorer screen should show the available shares from the PC you are trying to connect. If that is the case than DNS is not working like it should.

Enable them after you are done and retry, if you don't see anything anymore your firewall is blocking.

Now share a folder on the Win7 PC and see if you can access the Win7 shared folder from an XP PC.
If not, the share on Win7 is likely not "opened up" enough, because of security settings on the Win7 PC.

Stoic Joker:
You should find out the IP(v4) number from each of your PC's in the network. (open dos-box and type the command 'IPCONFIG /all')
Normally those start with 192.168.x.x or 10.0.x.x. Disable any firewalls for the time being.
-Shades (August 15, 2011, 11:48 AM)
--- End quote ---

This is probably the most important part of the diagnostic. Firewalls (especially 3rd party firewalls) create more anguish than they'll ever be worth. Terminate them with extreme prejudice. ...You'll be happier for it later.

Make sure you can ping target machine X by IP

Make sure you can ping target machine by name

Make sure everybody either is, or is not using Simple File Sharing (I prefer it off).

Make sure there are no blank passwords being used.

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