my desktop has windows 7 on it my laptop has vista. I can connect my desktop to my laptop and accessmy files on my laptop, but i cannot do the same with my laptopto my desktop. It says my desktop is accessible but I do not have theaccess tothe files on my desktop. I have file sharing turned on, but cannot figure out why my laptop cannot access my desktop. My xbox can. Any ideas? edit: i can share my printer, just not my files

it is not just you, im even having issues pulling files from my xp to my W7.

Dont try to use the HomeGroup feature unless you have at least two computers running Windows 7. Presumably you have put the computers in the same workgroup? On the Win7 go to Control Panel > All Control Panel Items > Network and Sharing Center > Advanced Sharing Settings and make sure you have Network Discovery, File and Printer Sharing and Public Folder Sharing all set to On and Password Protected Sharing to Off. To share a Windows 7 folder, right-click it > Properties > Sharing Tab > Advanced Sharing > Share this folder > Apply, OK > Close. Two little people should appear on the icons of the folders that are shared. An alternative way of sharing is to drag the folders you want to share to the Public folder. As you dont have Password Protected Sharing turned on, you have to change the security permissions on your folder(s) to allow Everyone access. Right-click the shared folder > Properties > Security Tab > Edit > Add and type Everyone (not the quotes) into the box and OK. Tick the boxes next to the permissions you want to allow (e.g. Read or Write, etc.) then Apply > OK, etc. You may see some screens coming up with message 'An error occurred while applying ..'. This is not unusual and can be ignored by clicking Continue. A very similar procedure is used on XP and Vista, i.e. slightly different wording.

Easiesst way is to enable 'Public sharing' , then copy from Laptop & Paste to Public fil, open PC & there's your file

BurrWalnut is exactly right! Windows 7 has many new security enhancements that make it even stronger in the business world; but a bit more difficult for users at home like us. I had trouble sharing any folders/files/extra hard drives with my other PCs using older Windows versions. After turning on all my sharing attributes, I could see my other desktop and laptop on the network and they could see my desktop with Windows 7. However, even though they all recognized each other I still couldnt get access. One was running XP and we have Vista on the other. I could get into files on them from Win7, but they couldnt get into the desktop with Windows 7. I made a step by step post on my fix after hours of tinkering around. Maybe this fix would work for your trouble? Its pretty much exactly what Burr said but I tried hard to make it very easy to follow. Here is the link to my step by step: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itpronetworking/thread/033c418b-1096-4df7-bfad-fd3d431f3cd5 Id love to hear what your result is, if you try it, could you reply either way? Id love the feedback! Thanks! PS Great work Burrnot taking anything away from what you said just adding!

ShockDoctor7 - Your link is dead per microsoftFr Elise - Support the Heart & Breast Cancer Foundations.

Dear Nate_GI think u have an antivirus oru enable Firewall on ur desktop (win7) which prevent u to access any shared file on it. So because of that u dont have the access to the files on my desktop.Just disable the Firewall of ur Antivirus & also the windows Firewall.Hope it'll help u.

Disabling firewall and AV doesn't work. Nothing else suggested by forums works. Think I'll go back to all XP Pro machines. They networked.Fr Elise - Support the Heart & Breast Cancer Foundations.