This is the scenario... two computers, one running windows xp pro, and
the other running windows vista home (dont tell me, I know it is
horrible, not my choice, or I would have gone for XP!). The printer is
on the vista one,
which the xp one used to be able to print to. There is plenty of this
information online and I have spent hours searching through it, and
other stuff, but to no avail.

So... now I can ping the computer from the xp machine (the xp is the
one who needs to print more than anything else, but hasnt the space to
do it), so the printer is on the vista machine. The vista machine
cannot see the xp machine, either via a ping or network connections.

I haven't installed anything on either machine since before it stopped
working. All I need to do is gain access to the vista machine to
print. I have just gone and ordered myself a print server in the hope
that this will fix it. I have tried creating user accounts, setting
both computers up on a specified IP range, same workgroup names (both
windows defaults and my own), but alas, no results yet.

At any one moment in time I can open up the command prompt in xp and
ping the vista machine, but that is as far as the communication will
go.

I am hoping a PS will fix it, but I am open to any suggestions that
anyone may have. The computers run fine in their own environments,
there are no problems with either of them, they arent running any
slower than usual, and nothing has been installed on any of them since
they were originally setup.

At a total loss!

-Ben

"Wagg"  wrote in message 
news:675197f2-f31e-4a3b-a4d3-b3ce409781b2@e1g2000pra.googlegroups.com...
> This is the scenario... two computers, one running windows xp pro, and
> the other running windows vista home (dont tell me, I know it is
> horrible, not my choice, or I would have gone for XP!). The printer is
> on the vista one,
> which the xp one used to be able to print to. There is plenty of this
> information online and I have spent hours searching through it, and
> other stuff, but to no avail.
>
> So... now I can ping the computer from the xp machine (the xp is the
> one who needs to print more than anything else, but hasnt the space to
> do it), so the printer is on the vista machine. The vista machine
> cannot see the xp machine, either via a ping or network connections.
>
> I haven't installed anything on either machine since before it stopped
> working. All I need to do is gain access to the vista machine to
> print. I have just gone and ordered myself a print server in the hope
> that this will fix it. I have tried creating user accounts, setting
> both computers up on a specified IP range, same workgroup names (both
> windows defaults and my own), but alas, no results yet.
>
> At any one moment in time I can open up the command prompt in xp and
> ping the vista machine, but that is as far as the communication will
> go.
>
> I am hoping a PS will fix it, but I am open to any suggestions that
> anyone may have. The computers run fine in their own environments,
> there are no problems with either of them, they arent running any
> slower than usual, and nothing has been installed on any of them since
> they were originally setup.
>
> At a total loss!

Sounds like firewalls are getting in the way.  Dunno much about Vista,
but google found this when searching for 'vista simple file sharing':
http://www.home-network-help.com/simple-file-sharing.html

-- 
Rob

On Mon, 16 Feb 2009 16:54:12 -0000, Rob wrote:

> Sounds like firewalls are getting in the way.  Dunno much about Vista,
> but google found this when searching for 'vista simple file sharing':
> http://www.home-network-help.com/simple-file-sharing.html

This (firewalls being the problem) was already suggested to him in
uk.adverts.computer 3 days ago.
Maybe he'll take notice of you ...

> This (firewalls being the problem) was already suggested to him in
> uk.adverts.computer 3 days ago.
> Maybe he'll take notice of you ...

And I did reply to say that I have turned them on, and off, etc, and
no one noticed the post I guess? 7th post on that topic, by me:

No firewalls, tried them enabled/disabled. Taken the anti virus off,
put it on, altered windows stuff, same subnet, same workgroup, tried
specified IP's, tried to let windows do it, tried naming my network
something else, tried addons for microsoft for networking over vista,
tried forcing the computer to accept the connection...

Rob, thanks for the link, allowed me to share the files on the vista
(couldn't do that before), up until I restarted, and now the settings
are the same as the webpage mentions, but I can no longer see into the
computer. I couldn't get the printer to work in that environment but
now its all gone again!

-Ben