Folder and File Sharing between Windows XP Pro and Vista Home Premium

When you expand your network and add new computers you have an urgent need to share resources between the old computers and the new ones. When they are two operating systems sometimes you face difficulties. This post shows how you may share files between an XP Pro and a Vista machine.

My setup consists of two desktop computers(XPHTEK and Hodentek) which are connected by wired LAN and two laptops. All four computers are wireless networked.

The two lap tops are, a Toshiba Satellite P 105-S6134 lap top(Hodentek2) with Windows Media Center Edition and a Acer Aspire Timeline note book( with Vista Home Premium).

The very first thing to do is to see if all computers (they are as can be seen) are part of a network.
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Pinging Hodentek3 [192.168.1.102] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.1.102: bytes=32 time=67ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.102: bytes=32 time=90ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.102: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.102: bytes=32 time=33ms TTL=128

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.102:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 10ms, Maximum = 90ms, Average = 50ms

C:\Documents and Settings\Jayaram Krishnaswamy>net view
Server Name Remark

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\\HODENTEK For articles and consulting
\\HODENTEK2 Consulting & Writing
\\HODENTEK3 Hodentek3
\\XPHTEK XPHTEK
The command completed successfully.
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In the Vista machine(Hodentek3) you should access Control Panel | Network and Sharing Center and turn on Public Folder Sharing and Password Protected Sharing (Read every bit before you do this as you will be exposing your surface area).

In the Vista machine you should place check marks for Routing and Remote Access and Remote Volume Management Check boxes as shown and click Apply. You need not turn-off the Windows Firewall.

For the folder which you want shared you should click on the Share menu item in the properties of the folder(right click the folder to get this) and enable it to be shared. In the permissions you should
add the user who wants to access this (the computer user of Hodentek2, for example) folder. When the folder is shared you should be able to see the network path as shown.

After this you will be able to access the folder on the Vista Machine on your Windows XP Pro machine as shown.

Happy file sharing!!!