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Windows Vista and XP Network File Sharing Setup

Many people reported problems in setting up file sharing with Windows Vista and XP.  These problems are caused by conflicts between a third party firewall/anti-virus and Windows firewall.  Disabling the functions of the former did not work.  Uninstall of the third party application is necessary.  This document covers adding a Windows Vista machine to a private network with Windows 98/2000/ XP machines and file sharing with these machines.     

Preparation

If you have a third party firewall/anti-virus installed in your Vista machine, uninstall the application before setting up file sharing.  

For your Windows XP machines to be detected in the network map on your Vista PC, you have to download Link-Layer Topology Discovery (LLTD) Responder (KB922120) and install in each of the XP machines.  Read the Microsoft article to learn about LLTD.  You can simply click here to download this file and install it in your XP machines following the instructions.  

Check whether this protocol is installed in the XP machines.  Locate the network card associated with the network connection (e.g., Control Panel à Network ConnectionsàWireless Network Connection).  Right click on the connection and select Properties.  The addition of the LLTD Responder is shown below:

Figure 1: Network Properties in Windows XP machine showing the addition of the Link-Layer Topology Discovery Responder protocol.

Ensure that Windows Firewall is ON in all the machines.  The exceptions of the Windows Firewall in Windows Vista and XP are checked as follows: 

File Sharing Setup

Follow the instruction given in the Microsoft article, File and Printer Sharing in Windows Vista.   It is desirable to setup same user account and password in Windows Vista and other machines to avoid file access problems.

Private Network Setup Example

We have four machines with the following configurations;

When the NtServer was started with Windows 2000, the network map and the computers in the network were displayed as follows;

Windows 2000 (NtServer) and 98 (Win98PC) machines do not appear in the network map, because their connections to the network are not resolved by the Windows Vista machine.  The presence of the four machines indicates that there is no problem in sharing files with these machines.

Printer Server PS-9C9402 (D-Link DP-301P+) is also detected as a device in the network.  One end of the print server is connected to the parallel port of a printer and the other end is connected to a RJ45 port in a router. The connection to the network is not resolved by the Windows Vista machine.

NtServer has dual operating system configuration.  When this machine was started with Windows XP, the following network map appeared on the Windows vista machine (VistaPC):  

Figure 6: Network map when NtServer was started with Windows XP.

Ethernet connection of the Ntserver to the router (Belkin N1 Wireless Router, F5D8231-4) appeared in the network map with a Switch added between these devices.  Windows Vista did not detect the connections of other devices (Print Server PS-9C9402 and Win98PC) to this Switch.      

The four computers share a printer (HP Laserjet 4100) connected to the print server.   

Summary

A Windows Vista machine:

Copyright © 2004 EChem Software
Last modified: April 06, 2007