Vista - Help With Vista & XP Network

I have 2 XP machines and one new Vista machine. I have set up my wireless/wired network just fine. My 2 XP machines can share files and I can use either computer to access the other's files.

Enter the Vista machine. I set up the network as requied and have a Workgroup. I can "see" the names of the files/folders being shared on all machines. I can use my Vista machine and move files back and forth, access them, etc. But when I sit at either of my XP machines, I can't access the folders on the Vista machine. When I try, I'm told "access denied." I've eliminated my firewalls, I have allowed full sharing. But nothing works.

I suspect there's a simple, but unknown solution. Help!

are you using the EXACT same user name and password on all three machines?

I do not need a log in for any of my computers. So there is no need to check for the same logins. More info for anyone wishing to help me. When I check the Network on my Vista machine, all of my computers are shown (a picture of each with their "name" below the picture of the monitor).

As I've said, I can use my Vista computer and access all files I've set up for sharing on the other computers, but when I sit at either of the XP machines, I can't access the files on the Vista machine. It's works in one direction, but not the other.

When I check, "My Network Places" on the XP machine, it lists my Vista Files, but I can't get them to open. Instead, I receive a message that says, "\file (actual name given)\ is not accssible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions. Access is denied."

This is bogus since I know I have permission since I set up sharing on the Vista Computer. I certainly hope others have experienced this problem and can help me.

If you copy files to the Public folder on the Vista machine can you edit/open/copy/delete them? For some reason it seems like on Vista you have an easier time if you copy stuff into Public then do whatever from the other machines. Seems like once I got that working then I can do stuff like share a folder on my external drive and do a backup across the network etc.. but I'd start with files in Public and get them to work.

In setting up my home network, I found I had to turn off the firewalls temporarily before trying to see the Vista machine in the XP My Network Places, then turn the firewall back on once it succeeded. See this page:
Vista - Networking Problems - Try This ~ The Blade by Ron Schenone, MVP
The following page has a quite good treatment of File and Printer Sharing in Vista, complete with screenshots:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/net.../vista_fp.mspx
File and Printer Sharing in Windows Vista
Another good article:
How to share files or a folder in Vista
How to share files from a folder on Windows Vista

I tried moving files to the public folder, but this made no difference. I will read some of the articles mentioned and see if they can help me with this problem. Thank you for the suggestions. I'll post again once I've read the articles and tried to solve this problem.

You don't specify the workgroup name. If you never set it then XP has MSHOME while Vista has WORKGROUP. Makes it tougher if they're different.