Vista with XP Network Help?

Question

I am trying to network a Vista Desktop and a XP Desktop. The Vista machine is hooked wirelessly while the XP machine is wired. Both comps can use the internet just fine. The problem is that when I try to view shared folders I can't access let alone "see" the other machine. In Vista's network center, I can see the Media Player Share Icon for the XP Machine but not the computer icon. In XP, I can't see anything (On Vista, I can't set up media share because the XP computer is not even on the list.) I have Mcafee Anti-virus's firewall(program is only on XP) as well as Window's firewall (on both machines) disabled and I still have the same problem. I have installed the link layer topology thing on XP and on the network map it shows the XP machine but when I click on it, it launches WMP (probably because the icon represented the media share only.) On the Mcafee (XP) network map, it shows the Vista computer's IP address only with a question mark icon. In the past other XP machine's have worked great with my XP machine. Both computers are on the same workgroup. Well, I hop[e this is enough info. If anyone has any idea of how to fix this problem, that would be great.

Answer 1

I have spent a lot of time connecting vista and xp, and it's just not as easy as it should be.

You're sure you have lltd installed on the xp computer?

You've checked the workgroup names?

You've rebooted both computers?

On the xp machine, you have file and print sharing turned on? (Or simple file sharing?)

On the vista machine, your network is private?  File sharing turned on? Password protected sharing turned off?

Can you see the vista machine from the xp machine?  Windows Explorer, Network Places, Entire network, workgroup.

I've seen it take up to 20 minutes for the vista machine to discover the xp machine.  Sometimes a reboot will do it.