Networking XP and Vista machines 2

[Bluejay07]

Hello,

I am currently facing the long debated issue of networking a Vista machine with an XP machine. My situation is a bit different in that I've had a successful connection for a few years. It was recently noticed that a connection fails.

The xp machine is a laptop and the vista machine is a desktop. Both machines are setup in a home environment. Here's the situation. The vista machine can connect to the xp machine's shared folders and is able to create, edit and delete files from these folders. The xp machine has had a shortcut on the desktop to connect faster to the public folder on the vista machine. The shortcut now errors out and provides a message that the public folder is not accessible or that the location cannot be found. The ip addresses of each machine remains the same as they have in the past using 192.168.xxx.xxx. I have even tried to ping the vista machine yet each time I receive request timed out errors.

If I use Windows Explorer, the vista machine (and the public folder) will show up under my network places but if clicked, it provides the same message: either the folder is not accessible or that the machine could not be located.

Both machines only have a single user and no additional user accounts have ever been created. All file sharing and print sharing options are enabled on the vista machine. The workgroup matches on both machines (also tried renaming workgroup and that didn't make any difference). In the past the xp machine has not had any issues accessing and modifying files in the vista public folder until recently.

Overall, the xp machine recognizes that the vista machine is on the network, although it can no longer access the public folder.

Would anyone have any further suggestions on why this might be occuring?

Thanks.

If at first you don't succeed, then sky diving wasn't meant for you!

 

[linney]

Have you tried removing the Share on the Public Folder, rebooting, and then recreating the Shared Folder making sure that the Access Permissions are correct?

Have a look at the NTFS File Access Permissions too.

Error Message: "Access Is Denied" When You Try to Open NTFS File System Folders

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q823306#appliesto

What security and firewalling programs are you using?

How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows Vista or in Windows 7

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/929135

 

[BadBigBen]

Disable Firewall and AntiVirus, for testing, on the VISTA side, then reboot BOTH PC's and retest the accessability of the puplic folder...

if you can access, the you know that the Firewall or AntiViral application is blocking access, then reactivate the AntiViral app, and retest, etc...

8/10 it usually is one of the two that seems to mess up inter connection...

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[Bluejay07]

Thank you both for your responses.
You've both lead me to a solution.

The problem was with the firewall on the Vista machine. The firewall is through Mcafee and it does have a range of ip addresses to allow for connections, however somehow the ip address for the xp machine was not being permitted. As soon as I created an entry with the specific ip address of the laptop, the laptop could immediately access the public folder.

Thank you again for your comments.

If at first you don't succeed, then sky diving wasn't meant for you!

 

[BadBigBen]

Glad you found the problem... and thank you for posting back...



Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"