Okay, here's an odd one.



Machine 1: Desktop, Vista Home Premium 64-bit SP2, firewall disabled, no a/v, fresh install
Machine 2: Notebook, Vista Home Basic 32-bit SP2, firewall disabled, no a/v, fresh install

fresh install = from OEM disc, not restore disc.

Machine 1 has files on it I want to share with machine 2, I can see my files on machine 1 from three XP machines, but not Machine 2, here's where it gets freaky, I plug Machine 2 into the network and disable the wifi, I can see the files. I go back on the wifi and I cannot ping machine 1 from machine 2, I cannot ping machine 2 from machine 1, I can ping machine 1 & 2 from three other XP-based machines regardless of being on wifi or not.

I'm stumped, here's the kicker, it's happening on another similar setup (vista 64bit sharing files and xp 32 bit & vista 32bit unable to connect, all over wifi, works with ethernet)

am I missing something here?

I feel stupid now... I figured it out, somewhat, I have a workaround.

I have two netgear WPN824v2's (and another one at that other location), for some reason that's giving me a fit, out of curiosity I reconnected to a 3rd access point, which is a cheap gigabyte brand router that I set up for my mom's notebook and wii, all three use WPA encryption so I doubt its that, and all netgear routers have the latest firmware. Anyway I can connect to the files and print to the 64-bit machine with my 32-bit machine. I'm going to pick up another router and replace one of my WPN824s and see if that takes care of it although I'm going to play with the settings on my 824's to see if there's something I can do to fix it.

Also I was mistaken earlier, the XP notebook was connected to the Gigabyte wireless, not my netgear's, I just connected to the netgear AP's and its getting packet-blocked too.