Peenie Wallie: Windows 7 Blows

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January 24, 2012

Windows 7 Blows

Now that I've got my Windows XP Pro SP3 boxes up and running properly using Windows Workgroups, I now want to get my Windows 7 laptops set up so that they can share files with the XP boxes.

Predictably, the Windows 7 the HomeGroup feature is not compatible with Vista or XP. Thanks, Microsoft. Thanks for that. If I ever see Bill Gates, I'll fillet him in the streets.

Sharing Files between Windows 7 and XP.

First make sure both machines are members of the same Workgroup which by default is named Workgroup.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itpronetworking/thread/033c418b-1096-4df7-bfad-fd3d431f3cd5

I spent a lot of time tonight trying to get Windows 7 and Windows XP to play nice together and share files. At the end of it all, I was only marginally successful.

Basically, I did the following:

First, on my Windows 7 laptop, I did the following:
disabled IPV6 in the registry
turned off IPV6 on both network cards (wired and wireless)
renamed the laptop from ASUS_Laptop to AsusLaptop
disabled the firewall
rebooted the box
launched windows explorer

Then, on the Windows XP Pro SP3 laptop, I did the following:
installed the Microsoft_LLTD_Hotfix
disabled the firewall
rebooted the box
launched windows explorer

Note that, on the XP machine, the "Entire Network" entry frequently disappears under Windows Explorer. I can only get it back by right-clicking and selecting Explore. Only then can I navigate down the tree to My Network Places - Entire Network - Microsoft Windows Network - Workgroup.

At this point, my Windows 7 box still doesn't appear, but if I hammer in \\Asuslaptop then, miraculously, the box appears. So, I can see the 7 box from XP. But I'm still not able to see the XP box from 7. Nice, Microsoft. Nice.

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