Set the workgroup on Win 7 x64 for WinXP

Even though I have an MS book open in front of me to tell how to set the workgroup-- not homegroup- to share with this XP machine when I restart all the settings are lost-- gone. This might be just not doing a save/apply right
but I cannot get it back once Win7 demands a restart.

I am about at the end of my string. It's like 'everything you did that showed the XP computer in Win7 is wrong.'

And so back to restart and try to find the error.

I have deleted all practice user accounts in the Win7 so I can't logon in a dead account where I didn't get the settings right. And there's certain screens where the 'Apply' stays greyed out' or I am taken to changing primary DNS settings whin I don't need to do but could look up with ipconfig.

This s a new installation of Win7 x64 (Ultimate). Has anyone else had these types of problems with simply joining a workgroup -- not a homegroup--to an XP home network?

 

In Network and Sharing Center -

1. Leave the Homegroup

2. Click Change Advanced Sharing Settings

In Home or Work -

3. Turn on Network Discovery

4. Turn on File and Printer sharing

5. Turn on sharing so that anyone with network access can read and write files in the Public folders

6. Ignore Choose media streaming options (for the time being)

7. Select Use 128-bit encryption

8. Turn off password protected sharing

9. Select Use user accounts and passwords to connect to other computers

10. Click Save Changes

This is the pre-Homegroup trouble free way of networking. Let us know how it goes.

 

I have used your suggestions and indeed have a couple of settings incorrect-- something no step by step book had provided.

Now I see both computers and am ready to log off. I've been to this point before.
.....

After a restart I am back to one node-- the local computer is there but-- no second machine is showing. This is what I've going through. Everything worked-- I could see files etc from the XP machine-- the one being shared. Then shutdown and everything is gone-- well no second computer anyway.

There is only one user which is me. Can the user ID be causing this in some way-- am I going somewhere else instead of the user profile shown? I closed all the files (nothing was open) and did a proper shutdown. What is not being saved?

Can I have a pure administrator account without any naming conventions which simply loads the operating system?

Would a reinstall be beneficial in eliminating these confusions?

 

Followup:

Well this is odd. See previous.

While still in the OS-- no shutdown-- I logged off then logged on. (There is only one user. )

This time my two workgroup machines are visible again.

All this is being done with no changes to the XP machine. That has a reliable workgroup going when I have an XP hard disk attached to the ethernet setup.

It seems log in or startup is affecting what I see on the workgroup.

I will shut down once to see if I can duplicate what happened from a cold start, but then I have to shut down this experimental build til tomorrow.

 

Last post on this for today:

I made a cold start.

Win7 loads the desktop directly-- no log in

I select log off

The log on screen appears with that user-- the only user -- and I select that.

Then the second node is added to the workgroup.

I would like to have this loaded to desktop automatically with no log in names at all as in when Win7 loads the desktop directly.

I can live with this duplication but what is the answer for such?

Thanks for your help today. I will return tomorrow for any other clues about this

 

I think it's simply being caused by the network being slow to populate. I'll have to think about whether or how you could boot directly into the network

 

Well that's what it does in XP. The default user is the same as administrator or however it works and the desktop loads direct.

I've got it going and thanks again to you and MG for that. I will copy to paper the page with your setup instructions for future installs.

Since I had a backup HD I loaded that and it too had the right nodes with the
logout / log back in procedure. That was before I added your additional settings.

It was a total mystery though and I still don't know the reason.

Also how do I get these replies to reverse order-- newest at the bottom?