Windows 7 and XP cabled and wireless network problems

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Can someone give me detailed setup instructions on how to setup a Home Network with four Windows 7 Pro and One Windows XP Computers. I setup the Network and everything was working except the XP Computer and after a few days the Windows 7 computers stopped sharing. Need Help??

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Here’s a great link for what you need;http://www.howtogeek.com/tag/windows-7/

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How To Geek Link to actual article from them. A Google searchshows a wealth of info on this subject. The link chowur supplied has hundreds of changes easy to make in Win 7. This is such a valuable site I have it on my favorites toolbar.

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The article is great but there’s one problem that a lot of people have. It works great out of the gate but after a short time one computer won’t be seen and then it will and then other. I’m trying to figure this one out and Help???

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The problem I have now is two Win 7 computer decided to not be seen even thou they worked right out of the gate. The message is error code 0x80070035 The Network path was not found. Any help???

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Is the Maximum Transfer Units (MTU) set correctly in your router as recommended by your ISP.
If the info is unavailabe, try the following.
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PC MTU test:-
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netsh interface ipv4 show subinterfaces
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To determine your optimum MTU

Most common ones to try are 1392/1400/1432/1492 (1432 is the usual recommended MTU for Talk Talk but may not work for all).
You can just try these ones, or alternatively you can diagnose the exact figure yourself as per below.

First, log into the router and set MTU to 1500 just for testing purposes.

Start a command prompt. Go to Start and select Run. In the box, type in cmd (Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7), and then hit enter.

In the cmd window type: ping -f -l 1472 google.co.uk

(the l is a lower case L, and note there are spaces after ping, f, l, and 1472)

You may get output that says something like “packet needs to fragment but DF set”, or 100% packet loss, or “request timed out”.

If you do, then type that command again, reducing the value of 1472 by small increments until you find the largest number which works with no lost packets.

Then just add 28 to this number to set as MTU in your router settings.

EG: max value with no packet loss = 1464, add 28 = optimum MTU of 1492.
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To change the MTU value in your computer

Although you may have now entered the right MTU setting in the router, you may need to adjust the MTU in your computer system,

as this may still be showing a default MTU which is different from your router MTU.

You can download Dr TCP which can do this via an easy to use interface, however this does not work for Vista/Win7.

So this needs to be done via a command prompt for Vista/Win7.

Open a command prompt (cmd) as administrator & type: ipconfig/all

Make a note of the exact names of the network devices.

They are the words directly after “adapter”. Eg: “Local Area Connection” or “Wireless Network Connection”.

Then use the following command to set the MTU value:

netsh interface ipv4 set subinterface “Wireless Network Connection” mtu=1432 store=persistent

netsh interface ipv4 set subinterface “Local Area Connection” mtu=1432 store=persistent

Change 1432 to your previously found result if needed.

More details on how to do this here: http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/vistaMTU.htm

However, if you find that you are getting the “element not found message” when following above instructions, try the below procedure.

Rather than use the name of the interface, use its numerical ID. To get that ID, enter the following at a command prompt:

netsh interface ipv4 show interfaces

Once you know the ID for the interface you want to tweak the MTU, use that rather than the description:

netsh interface ipv4 set subinterface “X? mtu=1432 store=persistent (where ‘x’ is the ID of the interface)

Above is using MTU 1432, but of course, this needs to be same number as the MTU setting in your router.
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The first thing I check if it was working and then seems to stop without any changes is some security module will kick in, perhaps after a system scan or reboot or update and block network access from that point on. The second thing is if you have any virtual network adapters, such as those installed with a virtual machine. If so try disabling them and see if connectivity returns. There is also a bug with Windows 7 where some systems will lose connectivity spontaneously and will not return unless the system is rebooted but you’ve probably already restarted at least once by now.
Do the network path not found system(s) have Internet access during those times when the error pops up? See if there is a driver update in Windows Update for the network card/bus if so.
Also try using the local I.P. address of the computer(s) from XP (search window>>computers>>i.p. address) or from another W7 system, in Network window, right click in the address bar and edit>>local I.P. # ( \###.###.##.## ).

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When you said “just set up” a wired and wireless network some questions came up immediately with errors I have seen in the past. Is your wireless router a gigabit capable (10/100/1000) n Router? Do you use or did you add an unmanaged switch to add ethernet ports? Many times folks think that they need to add a gigabit switch before the router and that lets them take advantage of the higher speeds between wired computers and they need to add the switch to the router even if it is slower and then make sure the wired computers are on the switch and they will cross talk fine at higher speeds. Also if the wired computers have gigabit nics and the router and/or switch is gigabit, you have to use Cat 6 cable to be sure enough wire pairs are in use to use the 10/1000 signals or they will revert to 10/100. But putting a switch before the routewr will cause the issues you describe. As well a failing router can show the same symptoms.

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Complicated topic, and the simple coverage at HowToGeek may not be enough to solve your problem. Networking XP with Windows 7 machines is a nightmare. If you dig in and seriously investigate, you’ll find that a variety of things can cause machines to disappear and file-/printer-sharing to break down. Significantly, you should not be using the HomeGroup feature of Windows 7 if you want to network with XP. Below are a couple of helpful threads on this subject:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-networking/xp-network-new-windows-7-laptop-cannot-see/c5dc0f40-4b28-4f71-8b29-df80f1eb9ccd?page=1

http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Windows_File_Sharing_(SMB/SAMBA/CIFS)

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