Hi all, I am having real problems connecting my new vista laptop to my xp desktop for file and printer sharing. i have gone through a number of steps with a computer expert to no avail. Is there anyone out there who can help me with this one please. System details: Desktop Win xp ver 2002 sp2 (pc1) laptop win vista home premium 2006 (pc2) Wireless router bt voyager 2100 Desktop wired to router Laptop wireless connected to router So far I have removed all firewalls, set the same workgroup on both computers, downloaded the link layer topology discovery for the windows xp machine and disabled the IPv6on the vista system , dhcp enabled,enabled file and printersharing on both computers and removed all passwords on computers and wireless router as discussed in other threads. When i go into view workgroup computers on the desktop computer network places I can see the icon for my laptop computer but cannot connect to it. When i go into network sharing centre on the laptop i can see the laptop an dan internet gateway device but not the other computer hower it is visible when i viw the full map of the computer in the network and sharing centre. It shows pc2--------wireless-------gateway--------internet I I pc1----------switch Both computers connect to the internet ok but not to each other. I was told to try pinging the ip address on each i pinged the desktop to the laptop and the request timed out I pinged the laptop to the desktop and that was ok. I tried ip config and did not have any details for ipv4 just ipv6 although ipv4 is enabled and ipv6 had been disabled. Also when trying to open the shared folders on the laptop it came up with the error message cannot communicate with pc2(192.168.----) network diagnostics pinged the remote host but did not recieve a response. I thought this was strange as this is all on the laptop. Please bear in mind i am a novice to this and all the steps shown have been instructed to me by someone else, Please give a detailed response. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

yep..me too. if anyone knows how to do this...could you speak slowly and use small words so I can understand what to do to fix this?????

Hi Jonhind, Can you export the Windows IP Configuration on both computers for further research? Here are the steps: 1. Open Command Prompt (cmd.exe), type ipconfig /all > ip.txt, and press Enter. 2. Then, type ip.txt and press Enter to open the file. 3. After that, please copy and paste the content of the file to the current thread. Note: Please perform the above steps on both computers. Meanwhile, Ive also included an article related to File Sharing in Windows Vista for your reference: File and Printer Sharing in Windows Vista http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb727037.aspx Hope it helps.

Thanks for the help, It is all working fine now.

I did everything the first poster listed but was still not successful until I quit the pc-cillin firewall and just used windows firewall and it worked like a charm - I have the same set-up.

I'm having exactly the same problem as Jonhind where I have two laptops running Vista Ultimate and a desktop runnng XP Pro with service pack 2.The vista computers can see each other and share files; the XP computer can see shared files on the laptops but the Vista computers can't see the files on the XP computer.The XP computer has three external hard drives, one for images, one for video files and the third is 'My Documents'.In Windows Media Player on Vista I can see all of the files on the external drives for images and for video files. I have checked by ading a video to the drive and then checking in Media Player and it's there to play. I must comment though that if I go into the setup for Media Center and select an exteranl drive connected to another computer to watch the drives for images and video don't show up, yet as said Media Center still picks up any files added to them.That would imply (to some extent (to me anyway)) that the connection between the Vista computer and the XP computer is working.The desktop computer is connect via a network cable to a Netgear DG834G router/modem and the laptops connect to this wirelessly.I've tried everything I can think of including the help file shown here (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb727037.aspx).I'm totally confused as to why I still can't see any of the files on the XP computer through Network.Maybe you can advise/help?

Sorry to rise this from the dead, but have had no luck searching online. Here is the content for my desktop that wont connect: Windows IP Configuration Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Mr-Fusion Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . : Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : gateway.2wire.net Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : gateway.2wire.net Description . . . . . . . . . . . : NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-1A-A0-4E-AE-9E DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.64(Preferred) Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0 Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Wednesday, January 04, 2012 8:42:19 AM Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Thursday, January 05, 2012 8:42:18 AM Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.254 DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.254 DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.254 NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled