XP & WIN7 networking oddity?

[OffCenter]

I have a home wireless network. Four computers run XP Pro. The latest, a netbook, runs Win 7. I have file sharing enabled so I can access anything on any computer from any other computer.....sort of.
The Win 7 netbook can access the files on any of the XP computers just fine. But when I try to access the files on the Win 7 unit from the XP units, I get a "access denied" message. What th....???
Anyone got an idea? I'm fresh out. And it doesn't help that I'm not very good at this.

 

[gismo]

I have a home wireless network. Four computers run XP Pro. The latest, a netbook, runs Win 7. I have file sharing enabled so I can access anything on any computer from any other computer.....sort of.
The Win 7 netbook can access the files on any of the XP computers just fine. But when I try to access the files on the Win 7 unit from the XP units, I get a "access denied" message. What th....???
Anyone got an idea? I'm fresh out. And it doesn't help that I'm not very good at this.

It's a security issue. I've waded through this before on my own network but am not experienced enough to guide you through a fix other than to say you could do some research on the subject via the Internet. The Win7 OS seems to have taken the security defaults to a much higher level but I'm certain you can configure the Win 7 computer to allow file sharing with older OS's.

 

[OffCenter]

It's a security issue. I've waded through this before on my own network but am not experienced enough to guide you through a fix other than to say you could do some research on the subject via the Internet. The Win7 OS seems to have taken the security defaults to a much higher level but I'm certain you can configure the Win 7 computer to allow file sharing with older OS's.

Thanks. I'll look over the security section of the control panel and see what I can find.
"Wading through it" is just about what I've been doing. Darned near sinking!!

 

[RJM62]

Firewall?

Also, stash something in the "Public" folder(s) of your user profile(s). Can the other machines see it?

-Rich

 

[Gmaper]

I have a home wireless network. Four computers run XP Pro. The latest, a netbook, runs Win 7. I have file sharing enabled so I can access anything on any computer from any other computer.....sort of.
The Win 7 netbook can access the files on any of the XP computers just fine. But when I try to access the files on the Win 7 unit from the XP units, I get a "access denied" message. What th....???
Anyone got an idea? I'm fresh out. And it doesn't help that I'm not very good at this.

If you get desperate you might try to research and/or try this registry fix on your XP systems. I had a problem similar to yours except that my XP systems could not access files on my Vista system. I don't yet have W7 and I sure wish I didn't have Vista :wink2:. I also had a problem with the latest version of Acronis True Image Home and IIRC this fix was needed for that as well. I may not remember correctly about that.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
\SYSTEM
\CurrentControlSet
\Services
\LanmanServer
\Parameters
IRPStackSize DWORD 0x0000000f (18)

Below is a link to a discussion about this. It also contains the fix shown above except the IRPStackSize is shown as 15 decimal and the discussion suggests that it needs to be slightly larger. I made mine decimal 18 on both of my XP systems and I no longer have any problem accessing files from any system to any system.

http://winhlp.com/node/40

My XP systems are SP3 having been upgraded from SP2 and SP1 before that. One is an XP Home and the other is XP Media Center. I had to add the IRPStackSize parameter because it did not exist.

To confuse the issue further consider this. I happen to have a laptop that belongs to my daughter and she has asked me to wipe and reinstall XP and her other software. I have SP3 installed having started from SP2 on the CD that came with the computer. I checked and it does not have the IRPStackSize parameter. I checked to see if I could access files on my Vista system and yes, I can. So, the IRPStackSize parameter does not always come into play. This particular system has very little other software installed at this point and I have not enabled file sharing. That, of course, does not stop one from accessing files on another computer. Also, the workgroup name is different than my local network so this computer does not see the other computers in the GUI. As I said, this tidbit of info just confuses the whole issue more.

This problem with IRPStackSize is discussed in many places on the web so don't be bashful about reading all about it. The issue is confusing but I finally tried it and viola, it fixed my problem. Perhaps it will help you.

BTW, in all of my researching on this way back when I never saw any discussion about dangers of doing this other than the usual caveats about making registry changes. Registry changes are not usually tackled by the faint of heart.

Bruce

 

[TangoWhiskey]

Look through this:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-7/share-files-and-printers-between-windows-7-and-xp/