Share Files and Printers between Windows 7 and XP

Share Files and Printers between Windows 7 and XP

If you have a home network and are running Windows 7 and have XP on other PC(s) you might want to share files between them.  Today we will look at the steps to share files and hardware devices like a printer.

Sharing Files In Windows 7 and XP

Sharing folders between two Windows 7 machines with the new HomeGroup feature is an easy process, but the HomeGroup feature is not compatible with Vista or XP.

First make sure both machines are members of the same Workgroup which by default is named Workgroup.

On the Windows 7 machine go into Control Panel \ All Control Panel Items \ Network and Sharing Center then click on Change advanced sharing settings.

You will want to verify the following settings under Advanced Sharing Settings for the Home or Work and Public profile.

If you want any user to have access the public shares turn off password protection.  This is located in Advanced Sharing Settings toward the bottom of the list. 

If you want to keep it enabled make sure there is a log in account for the other XP machines and they have a password.

Now if you go into Network in Windows 7 you should see your XP machine and the Windows 7 as well

This should help you get started with sharing your files and other devices with your Windows 7 machine.  When I first started I was able to see the printer on XP right away because I had a HomeGroup set up, but once I deleted it I needed to share the printer like you would for a workgroup.  You might also have to do a couple restarts of the XP machine for it to see the shared resources on Windows 7.


Good Luck..

Blank screen when I boot from XP installation CD : Resolved issue

Today while working in company I got an issue.
I was trying to do a fresh installation for Windows XP. I inserted the bootable CD and started the computer. Select to ask me boot device and then selected CD/DVD. It asked "press any key to boot from cd" as usual. I pressed a key and "inspecting hardware configuration" appeared.

Unfortunately just a second after that screen turned blank and stayed so. I tried many times and waited a while also. I tried by setting BIOS settings as default and all but nothing helped..
so I googled for almost an hour and got the the issue and fixed it..

It was like..

I had Cent OS 5.6 installed on the hard disk and XP was not able to identify ext4 partition and that partition has MBR. so it was getting hanged or what so ever but it was showing only blank screen when I was trying to install new operating system.

I found that it was working fine with Windows server 2008 or Windows Vista or Windows 7 so what I did, I boot my system from Windows Vista DVD and delete the partition which was containing MBR. and also format the rest of the drives too as I only need to install windows system over linux.. and after deletion.. I just open DVD drive and removed Windows Vista DVD and insert XP CD again.. now when I tried it worked fine..

so it may be issue that XP is too old to identify ext4 partition or any other issue I don't know.. but it got resolved any how.. :-)

Good Luck if anyone is facing the same.. :-)