Vista File Sharing w/Win XP Computers

[Ron Aikins]

Hello. I'm new to this site & forum, but it looks active & helpful.

We have a wireless home n/w which has always worked fine with the several XP machines we have in terms of file sharing. I recently added a new laptop running Vista Home Premium. After days of research & trial & error I can (finally) "see" & share files & folders FROM the Vista machine. However, the XP machines see the Vista machine & can map it as a n/w drive, but then cannot even list the folders.

The error msg indicates access is denied, even though I've set all the sharing & permissions I can find on the Vista machine to allow r/w access.

Any ideas what I might be missing?

Thanks in advance,

Ron

PS

In case you're interested, removing Norton 360 from the Vista machine seemed to be the key to allowing it find other computers on the n/w. I had already followed the red herring involving the "hotfix" from MS that had to be loaded onto the XP machines with no luck.

[+Kyle Subscriber¹]

You need to make an administrator account on both machines have the same username and password in order to work.

[Michael York]

Hi Ron,

This is Mike from the Norton Authorized Support Team.

The first step you should take is to run Windows Update on all of the machines on your network, until it informs you that no more updates are available. Next, re-create the User accounts on all of the machines with the proper permissions and make sure they are all in the same Workgroup.

In regards to Norton 360, you will need to enable the "Trust" control for the machines on your network. The steps to do this will differ depending on the version you have installed.

If you are using version 1 or version 2 of Norton 360 and have a valid license, you are entitled to a free update to Norton 360 version 3, which I highly encourage. Before I give you the instructions for updating, first follow the instructions I listed above and let me know what version of Norton 360 you are using so i can provide you with the correct configuration steps for media sharing.

Thank you,

Mike

Hello. I'm new to this site & forum, but it looks active & helpful.

We have a wireless home n/w which has always worked fine with the several XP machines we have in terms of file sharing. I recently added a new laptop running Vista Home Premium. After days of research & trial & error I can (finally) "see" & share files & folders FROM the Vista machine. However, the XP machines see the Vista machine & can map it as a n/w drive, but then cannot even list the folders.

The error msg indicates access is denied, even though I've set all the sharing & permissions I can find on the Vista machine to allow r/w access.

Any ideas what I might be missing?

Thanks in advance,

Ron

PS

In case you're interested, removing Norton 360 from the Vista machine seemed to be the key to allowing it find other computers on the n/w. I had already followed the red herring involving the "hotfix" from MS that had to be loaded onto the XP machines with no luck.

[Karl L.]

You need to make sure that you are connecting to the Vista machine with a valid username and password first. Second, in Vista there are certain options that you must have enabled in the network configuration to make file sharing work. I believe that you should have the correct settings already if you selected "Home Network" initially when you setup your computer. Go to Control Panel -> Network and Sharing Center and make sure that you have the correct global sharing options selected: make sure that password protected sharing is enabled and that you have file sharing enabled over your local network. You might also want to check to be sure that the firewall is set to allow file sharing through.

BTW this guide kinda goes over part of what I was talking about (with screenshots!)

[ajua]

Here at home all my computers have Vista, but from time to time i get machines with XP and when i connect them to my network i can access all the shared resources without any problems and automatically.

You can try to share something in the Vista machine writing "everyone" (without the quotes) on the allow list to see if you can access that resource from XP.

Maybe 360 is messing with the network.

[Andre]

Open folder properties and go to Security tab. Click Edit and then Add in a new screen. Type in Guests and hit OK button. Double check what guests can do and what not. Apply the settings and close the folder properties. It all should work now.