Vista - Accessing a network on XP

I have just bought a laptop to replace an old XP running machine. The rest of the house has XP machines and i have always been able to access them via the old laptop through the wireless network that i installed recently. I have managed to connect to the wireless network successfully with the new laptop but I cannot find any other machines on the network - I am a vista novice and was pretty crap with XP too. Is it something to do with IP addresses? I want to be able to see the machine that has all the shared drives on. Can any one offer a user freindly solution to this as i am sure it is probably quite easy! Many thanks

Hello Willa, and welcome to the vista forums

The major issues with XP/Vista sharing are Related to the fact that XP and Vista use a different workgroup name and the new discovery system used in vista answers to both are here ...

InformIT: How to Network Vista and XP Computers Together > How to Network Vista and XP Computers Together

and Here ...

Network Map in Windows Vista does not display computers that are running Windows XP

hope this helps

Many thanks - I will give it a try.

Hi barman 58,

That worked fine I can now see all the other computers on the network - i just can't access them. Sharing is set up on all the aother computers and i followed the instructions on the article to the latter. I also tried to download the patch - but it said insufficient space - i checked ms knowledge base and this said it was a known problem - patches for patches, it then went on to say something in heavy tech speak that completely lost me.

I have tried putting my "servers" ip address into the browser on vista laptop but its still not finding it.

Any clues?

Thanks

Hi Willa,

To check the IP connectivity you will need to use the ping command in a command prompt window, rather than a browser, just run CMD.EXE and type ping followed by the IP address of the computer you want to check - you can also enter the computer name to check that the system is working correctly ie ping computername

One thing to check - do you have passwords set on all the accounts, although this is said to be not needed I have found that it will quite often help at least initially.

Another thing is firewalls - easy to check - switch off the firewall on both ends of the connection - if the connection is now possible then the correct ports have to be opened to allow communication - Windows firewall should do this automatically but with a 3rd party firewall check that ports 135 to 138 and 445 are open at both ends. chect your 3rd party documentation for how to do this as it does vary

another trick that can sometimes help in Vista is to connect via the start menu search bar
press the Winkey to open the menu and type \\computername\sharename into the box

Hi again,

OK, pinging the "server" worked and worked very quickly. It is obviously there, great! I know the user and password for the "server", but there is no option to enter a user name or password. It just keeps coming up with Login failure: the user has not been granted the requested logon type at this computer. I have searched a few MS forums and there is a thing with going into the maintenance sector of the xp "server" and granting access - it can see the vista machine but wont grant it access. The firewall (3rd party that someone installed for us) has never blocked access to any of the other netorks, even when connected via wifi. I appreciate your time on this and I hope you excuse my lack of knowledge! regards will

Hi Will,

any chance you could point me to where this is?

If I can understand what they are suggesting I can hopefully translate it into a practical solution for this problem, the fact that you can see the XP machine and Ping it suggests that this is almost working so hopefully we can get it sorted out

Hi again - one of them was as follows:

Thanks so much. I too was struggling to solve this but searched on pcreview and that was the solution to my problem. Local security policy can be found by start->run->gpedit.msc->computer configuration->windows settings->security settings->local policies

The other was similar but to go to control panel - admin tools - local security policy user rights assignment - access this computer for the network - right hand click - properties - add user groups - change location to workgroup - advanced - find now - "vista Laptop" *it shows up here amazingly* - ok - ok - apply - apply - confirm settings - ok - then it comes up with failed to save local policy document.

I am probably chasing around in circles, but again, I am no expert!

Does this help? Thanks once more.

Ok one thing to try ...

If you have XP Pro on the machine containing the shares you may need to use the advanced sharing option.

This is explained here ...

Windows XP Networking: Sharing in the Home Office

The only thing to try other than this is, now that the machines are seeing each other, to create a new share and share with everyone and see how this works

Hi Nigel,

I would like to say thank you. The last post you sent lead me onto the xp professional article with one really interesting line "On the View tab, in the Advanced Settings area, click to clear the Use Simple File Settings (recommended)"
It was already unticked. As we run xp home edition, i thought "sod it" lets check the box, lets do the complete opposite. The files just came flooding in..........................................

Were fixed. Thank you so much for your help today.

Tomorrow, I am installing Sage for my wifes small business. Oh joy.