Home Networking

[hjneumann]

I just bought a HP desktop with Windows 7 and want to attach it to my home network to share files and printer.  I currently have a network on my old desktop and laptop (both with XP).  The printer works on both old machines and I can veiw documents on the old machine from the laptop, but not the other way around.

How do I get all 3 PCs to share files and printer?

[viafax999]

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@hjneumann wrote:

I just bought a HP desktop with Windows 7 and want to attach it to my home network to share files and printer.  I currently have a network on my old desktop and laptop (both with XP).  The printer works on both old machines and I can veiw documents on the old machine from the laptop, but not the other way around.

How do I get all 3 PCs to share files and printer?

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Your easiest way to view stuff from machine to machine is to share the device or drive or folder and set the permission levels to allow access.  Typically in a home network that permission level would be everyone.

To share a folder right click on it and select properties then the sharing tab then share the folder add everyone and say OK

You can share the a whole drive though this is typically not advisable.  To do this you would right mouse click on on the drive and select sharing or share with dependinh which OS you are using.  Similarly for printers right mouse click the device and select sharing.

To use the shares from another machine type in the address bar of windows explorer

\\sharing-machine or \\sharing-ip-address and you will get a list of the shared resources for that device.  Normally you would add entries in My Network places so that they would always be available ther.

[geoellis]

I'm having the same connectivity issue.  My legacy network is two XP desktops, which had no problems networking with a Fios router, sharing peripherals, files, etc.  However, a new Macbook and Windows 7 laptop both cannot access network resources, except the internet.  Both have no trouble getting on the internet through the netowrk, however, they don't see the printer or shared files on the network. 

If anyone has experienced this and has a solution it would be great to hear.  I've tried everything possible to no avail.

Thanks.

[viafax999]

Don't know much about Macbooks but I had exactly this issue with a win7 pc.  It had to do with the fact that all the machines were connected to the Westell router segment and under win7 if I looked at the network map it showed it as a public network.

I went into network properties and changed it to private and everything reappeared.

Prior to connecting it this way round I had a second router with all the machines connected to it and the router connect to the Westell.  In that setup the segment attached to the second router showed as a private network and there was no issue.