XP SP3 accessing Win7 folders & drives

[kep55]

There are probably several hundred posts on the TechNet Windows 7 networking forum on this topic. So far, none of the suggestions work. Here's the deal.
I have Win7 RC Bld 7100 on my desktop. I have shared my entire D, E, & F drives as well as my Libraries on the C drive. The desktop connects thru a DLink DIR 628 router via cable. MY laptop is running XP Pro SP3 with the usual Broadcom integrated wireless. The laptop can see every shared drive & file on the desktop. Whenever I try to open the shares, I get an error message that reads something along the lines of You do not have permissions to use this resource. Please contact your system administrator.
Win7 is set as work group, NOT home group. Both machines are part of the same named network. Advance sharing permissions are the same on both machines. Security is WEP on the router. As we only have the two machines, "Everyone" has full rights.
Any suggestions? IS there any way to whack all the network info and start over? If this is how the retail version works, Win7's shadow will never darken my computers' portals and I'll stick with XP. Or switch to Linux.

 

[sminlal]

So I take it you are not supplying a username and password when you attempt to connect?

Is the Guest account enabled on your Win7 system? "Everyone" refers to any authenticated user, including the Guest account. But if the Guest account is disabled and you haven't supplied a username and password then you won't be authenticated, and "Everyone" won't work.

 

[kep55]

BINGO! IT works. Too bad Win7 is so damned complicated compared to XP Pro. I guess MS thinks everyone who uses Win7 is a sysadmin or something because I could find nothing in the help folder or on the Win7 forums. I also managed to figure out how to turn on automatic login, another task much simpler in XP. Now users aren't confused or tempted by the seeing Guest button.