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Recently I’ve started to see more inquiries regarding mixed XP and Vista networks. These two operating systems, though from the same vendor, don’t play well together. There are a few steps you can take to force these rowdy siblings to play nice.
The first thing is to make sure that all of your machines are on the same workgroup. The default workgroup name changed between XP and Vista so if you are trying this with the default settings it’s not going to work very well. To change your workgroup XP you rightclick on My Computer, choose Properties, Click the Computer Name tab, then click Change. Enter the desired workgroup othere and then reboot. Things will go more smoothly if you change the XP workgroup to “workgroup” to match the Vista default.
The second key is to install the Layer Topology Discovery Responder on your XP box which is how Vista finds XP machines. Once you have that installed your XP machine should show up on the Vista network map.
There are still a few more things you’ll have to do though. You’ll need to set the network location to Private. You can do that by clicking the Start button, clicking Control Panel, clicking Network and Internet, and then clicking Network and Sharing Center.
Next click Customize, now under Set Network Location, next to Location type, click Private, click Next, and then click Close.
And last but not least you’ll have to make sure you have user credentials on both machines. Create a user on the Vista machine with the same login and password you are using on the XP machine, then do the same for the Vista user on the XP machine.
Now enable whatever file and printer sharing you would like and enjoy.

As always, if you found this helpful donate to The Empire, feel free to leave comments and questions if you have any trouble.