Windows 7 media streaming

Hey guys,

I have searched the forums for a problem similar to mine, but couldn't find anything, so I hope I am posting my problem in the appropriate area.

I am having trouble with streaming my media to other PCs, and my Xbox 360, which are all connected to a home network. I have now on several ocassions, sometimes spreading over a few days, tried researching and tinkering about with lots of settings, but to no avail, and I was hoping you guys could help...

Keeping it simple, I am using Windows 7, and would like to stream my media to my Xbox360 - mainly music, but videos would be a bonus. There are two other PCs on the home network, one using windows 7 and the other is Vista. Ok, so if I go to explorer and click on networking, under the 'computer' heading, all 3 computers are visible, and I can access the shared folders and use any content within them. Then there is the second heading 'media devices', which also contains the 3 PCs on our home network. I can right click on these and access the media within them no problem....

....However, if I go to explorer either of the other PCs, and click on networking, all 3 PCs are visible under the 'computers' section, but there are only 2 media devices showing up, with my PC being the one which is not shown. Now, using my xbox360, it can find these other 2 PCs and play any shared media, no problem, but my PC is not visible, and I'm guessing this is because my PCs 'media device' is not visible on any other PC within the network, other than mine.

In the advanced sharing setting, media streaming is set to on. And in 'media streaming' options, all devices are set to 'allowed'. I have even customized each device not to use 'default settings', but to 'make all of the media in my library available to this device'.

I have also tried to configure my media center (on the PC) to communicate with my the Xbox, but they cannot find each other. If I look at a network map using my PC, the xbox shows up just as it should.

Has anybody got any ideas on how I could get this media streaming working frm my PC??

PC specs:
Dell Studio Desktop 540MT: Intel Core 2 Quad-core Q6600 (2.4GHz, 1066MHz, 8MB)
Windows 7 Home Premium (32-bit Operating System) [Service Pack 1]
Using AVG anti-virus free edition and Zonealarm free firewall
A Safecom Modem/router and a Getnet fast ethernet switch

If I have missed out any details, please ask away, and I will try anything which is suggested. Thanks in advance for any replies.

 

Firewall software is the first thing I would be looking at, for one machine not able to be browsed by other machines, and as long as all machines use 7, you should be able to use Home Group.

 

Thanks for your reply Brownizs

I have previously tried these steps, although I have just tried them again, just to be sure. I shutdown Zonealarm, but to no avail. I also disabled the windows firewall, just to see what would happen. After shutting these two down, nothing changed, so I then disabled the media streaming, and turned it back on, but there was no difference. I also considered that the other two machines are both operating with Zonealarm, and their media streaming is fine, so the firewall issue is not the problem. I forgot to mention I also have Spybot running, along with it's Teatimer, as do the other machines. I disabled this whilst trying the firewall suggestion, but it did not make a difference.

And with the Homegroup, only one other machine uses Windows 7, and we can happilly join the homegroup together, but the media streaming from my machine is still not picked up. Also, my main priority is to stream music to my xbox360, and this does not have homegroups, so that is irrelevant, although I have tried this. Also, the third machine in question is running on Vista, and this can stream media no problem.

Something else I should mention, I like my computer to run as efficiently as possible (as we all do), so I run 'msconfig' ocassionaly, and disable some services which are not needed, which is fine. But for the sake of streaming media, I have re-enabled all services, to ensure everything is operational. However, a lot of these services still say 'not running', even though I have allowed them to start from boot up. I'm guessing these services would start themselves at any point if they are needed for the media streaming? However, I do not know which ones are needed for media streaming, so I cannot check to see if the ones that are needed, are running or not..??

Thanks for your suggestions, and anything else that is suggested, I shall give it a go

 

Do a search at microsoft.com about unable to media stream in windows 7. It will give you info on what files to remove. I had problems with Windows 7 Starter on my netbook not working properly, and when I updated to pro, which my other machine is running, no problems with both machines showing up in our blu-ray, and in the media share portion of our U-verse boxes.