Vista can see Vista, but can't see XP machines

RedFury · December 27th, 2008, 06:49 PM

I can't figure this out for the life of me.

Built the wifes new system with Vista 64 ( Home premium ) and have it hooked up ( wired ) to our router/dsl. Same with 2 XP machines with service pack 3. I have an XP laptop wireless and currently have a Vista Laptop wireless going on. The Vista Laptop can see the whole darn network. Vista 64 can only see the Vista laptop...nothing else.

What have I not enabled on this 64 bit machine that I need to do to it? I can search for the XP machines by name and find them and the shared files, but that is the only way to find them. Problem is, I want to be able to print off the XP machines printers from the Vista 64 machine.

seriously, wtf? I don't know Vista very well, I'll admit that-but it's a heckuva OS as far as setting itself up.

**GroundZero3** · December 27th, 2008, 08:59 PM

Can you ping the addresses of the xp machines? Do you have the firewalls running on the xp machines (built in/software)

RedFury · December 27th, 2008, 11:50 PM

Haven't tried, but like I said, I can see each machine if I search for it with the search bar above the start button on the Vista 64 machine.

The only firewall I have running is the hardware firewall built into the router.

RedFury · January 20th, 2009, 10:26 PM

Update!

Figured it out.

In XP I had to change the Workgroup name to the same as Vista.

When I was in vista, I thought I had changed the setting to be the same as my XP machines, which were "MSHOME" at the time. But I hadn't changed the workgroup name in Vista....I don't have access to it at the moment, but I think I changed the domain to MSHOME and the workgroup wasn't changed.

Well, to anyone else that has a problem getting Vista to network with XP, make sure the WORKGROUP is the same on all computers.

I feel kinda stupid about it, but since I'm so new to Vista and the lay of the land, I was playing like I knew where I was, but in actuality was lost and just fumbling through the dark.

Well, I got a map and figured out where I made a left turn Clyde!

All is good now, printers and files are being shared once more!