OK, guys, hope you can help me here. I recently purchased a laptop which has a built in wireless connection and it runs on Vista. My desktop is an XP machine and has installed on it a wireless router made by Philips. This works fine as does the connection to the internet for the new laptop - hunky dory in fact. However I'm having trouble getting the laptop to read the files on the XP machine. On the network panel the laptop 'sees' the XP machine OK, and when I double click it open up Media Player, but I can't access the files at all. I've tried changing the share media to 'on' on the laptop, but it won't let me, with the box I need to tick greyed out!! It's doing my head in, can anybody help? Please .......

Can no-one help?

Hi, Thank you for the post. I understand that you are attempting to share the media files on a Windows XP machine. However, on a Windows Vista machine, you find that the media file on the Windows XP machine cannot be read. Before we go further, I would like to confirm from which step you performed did you find the box you need to tick grayed out? Would you please capture a screenshot accordingly for further research? Meanwhile, please ensure the following items before trying to share the media files: 1. Windows Media Player 11 is installed on the Windows XP machine. 2. Media Sharing is enabled on the Windows XP machine. 3. The two computers are located in the same IP subnet. 4. The firewall on the computers are configured properly. For more information, please refer to the following articles: Sharing your media http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/faq/sharing.mspx Share your media throughout your home http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/knowledgecenter/howto/mp11/sharemedia.aspx#Turnonmediasharing Sharing media on a network using Windows Media Player http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/079a4d8b-e19d-4d7f-bef1-116cb711364c1033.mspx Hope it helps. Sincerely, Joson Zhou Microsoft Online Community Support

Joson Thanks for replying. Appreciate it. OK, here goes. Windows Media Player installed OK on XP Machine, all access for Media Sharing is enabled and I think that the subnet and firewalls are configured to suit. The problem is on the Vista machine. I can't turn on the Media Sharing box and when I try to do so, it says i should click on a 'Change' button, which I do and this opens up Windows Media Player, but then I'm not allowed to access the files. I think it's reading my home network wrongly. I'm really stumped and of course very frustrated. The Vista machine 'sees' the XP machine OK, but it's just that it won't read the files. Ben

Ok, seemed to have overcome my initial problem and the Vista laptop is now 'seeing' the XP machine. I can't though access the files on the machine - it won't let me at all. Here's what I'm doing, and if anyone can tell me what I'm doing wrong I'd be grateful. Here's what I do. 1. I go to Windows Media Player 2. I open up Library and go to Add to Library 3. On this screen I click on Add button, this opens up the Add Folder screen 4. I then click on Network tab which shows the XP machine 5.I double click on the XP machine and it tells me the following : "Windows cannot access \\*****-****-PC 6. When I attempt to 'diagnose' the problem, it tells me that \\*****-****-PCis not a valid hst name HELP!!!! Ben

Hi Ben, Thank you for your response. I suspect that the Windows Vista machine is not able to access the Windows XP machine. Please perform the following steps to confirm it: 1. On the Windows Vista machine, click Start, type cmd in the Start Search box, and press Enter. 2. In the Command Prompt window, type net use \\<IP address of the Windows XP machine>\<share folder name> If the Windows Vista machine can access the share folder, you will see the following output:The command completed successfully.If not, please capture the error message for further research. If the Windows Vista machine is able to access the share folder, please temporarily all turn off the firewall on both machines to check if the issue persists. Hope it helps. Sincerely, Joson Zhou Microsoft Online Community Support