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I want one that works as well visually, and functionally, as XP. In Win 7 I can’t tell by looking in the left pane which folder is open. There’s no visual clue that I can see, where in XP it was obviously obvious. By clicking folders, I can completely lose the relationship between the right and left panes. Find it hard to believe that this bug survives.

Second, double-click a folder in the left pane and it shoots to the bottom. WTH?

Third, I prefer to see the path in the title bar, not that chain of virtual names. I have to click to see the path, and that loses selections. Plus, it doubles the frustration of not knowing where I’m at due to the lack of visual clues.

I’m not going to try to convince you to stick with something that you have decided against – that would be pointless.

However, it is worth noting all the issues you mention are either intentional or configurable in Windows 7.

Each to their own however, so if you need to switch, Zig has given a good source for review.

You can’t replace the Explorer in Windows, it’s deeply embedded within the OS (open task manger and kill explorer.exe and you will see what I mean – no wait a minute that’s a bad piece of advice to follow, but I guess it makes the point!).

There may be add on applications that do what you want, but I don’t know what it is you that want from a file manager that isn’t already included or configurable in Win7. So please describe what you are trying to achieve and someone may be able to point you to a solution.

Thanks for your help. I am a lot further on than I was before

You’re very welcome.

The main difficulty is the difference in the levels of OS: Pro vs Home. It would be much easier with XP Pro to Win 7 Pro, or Win 7 Home to XP Home but that’s for another day……Main thing is it’s working now.

Windows 7 Home Premium machine

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMControlSet001ControlLs a
LmCompatibilityLevel Value data: 3 hexadecimal

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMControlSet002ControlLs a
LmCompatibilityLevel Value data: 3 hexadecimal

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetContro lLsa
LmCompatibilityLevel Value data: 3 hexadecimal

XP Pro machine

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMControlSet001ControlLs a
lmcompatibilitylevel Value data: 0 hexadecimal

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMControlSet003ControlLs a
lmcompatibilitylevel Value data: 0 hexadecimal

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetContro lLsa
lmcompatibilitylevel Value data: 0 hexadecimal

Yes, I think this is diagnostic (famous last words!).

The entry on the Win7 Box means: Clients use only NTLMv2 authentication, and they use NTLMv2 session security if the server supports it. Domain controllers accept LM, NTLM, and NTLMv2 authentication.

On XP Pro: Clients use LM and NTLM authentication, but they never use NTLMv2 session security. Domain controllers accept LM, NTLM, and NTLMv2 authentication.

See here.

So on the Win7 box you want to set the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMControlSet001ControlLsa to value=1 which keeps it compatible with Win 7 NTLM/NTLNv2 and legacy LM.

Remember to take a backup of the registry before editing!

OK Tom, I assume you mean “unable” to see any other machines?

That is odd, but might be a problem with the live CD session or perhaps v11.04 is broken – it works fine on v10.04. It may be worthwhile investigating more closely, or it may be a red herring. Up to you if you want to investigate that more, let me know…

Meanwhile, something that is missing from the “How To Geek” article is the encryption level. I’ve found setting 128bit encryption often breaks connections to XP Home Boxes. Go to Control Panel>Network and Sharing Center>Advanced Sharing Settings and look for the Files Sharing Connections setting. Make sure its set for 40/56 bit encryption. See attached image.

Assuming the Linux Live connection to your XP Pro boxes is a red herring for now, you may need to address how to connect XP Pro (as opposed to XP Home) connection to Win 7 Home. You may need to edit the registry, but with any registry editing there is a risk.

This short thread provides a link and brief description to what’s needed. Add a DWORD called LmCompatibilityLevel to HKLMSYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlLsa and set it to a value=1. The article says value=2, but in this XP Pro to Win 7 Home scenario, I believe it should be value=1. Always backup your registry before editing!

Is the mobo booting correctly? TerFar noted that there should be beeps, but it’s not clear if you have any, or if it’s a motherboard that is not booting.

When you removed the aux power connector from the gfx card and the system “ran”, were there beeps and genuine signs of life, or was it just fans spinning etc. -> did system boot and attempt to load the OS under these circumstances. Did the HD spin up and load the OS, was the num lock on the keyboard illuminated? If not, then do you get these normal signs and symptoms when you remove the gfx card completely?

Given that you have replaced the PSU, absence of beeps or other normal signs and symptoms when the gfx card is not installed suggests a dead motherboard.

I suspect the root of your problem lies in the different “levels” of OS, i.e. Home vs Pro. It’s quite possible that a local or group security policy has been set on the XP Pro boxes that prevent sharing over the workgroup. They may even be Domain Joined, but I imagine you would have noted that.

By going to an unrelated OS you can rule of one set of variables: Download and burn a Linux Live CD. Run the Live session on the Win7 machine and check that you can browse your XP shares. If you cannot browse the shares using Linux, the problem is on the XP boxes. If you can view and modify contents of the shares, the issue is on the Win7 box.

Assuming for one moment that you can browse the shares under Linux, Win7 requires the Workgroup to be the same and an account on the XP machines to be setup that has the same username as the Win7 box. You might also disable Homegroup and check password sharing setting on the Win7 box, but I guess that has already been checked.

On the other hand, if you cannot browse the shares under Linux, it would be worthwhile investigating the Local or Group Security Policy settings on the XP Pro machines.

During this process, you will also have built yourself a nifty little utility disk – Linux Live CD’s are worthwhile keeping hold of for these kinds of head scratching times.

It’s difficult to see what could cause this. However, some of the tweaks and changes (per-to-peer, ad-hoc etc.) that you have tried along the road may now be obscuring the root cause of problem.

I would attempt to start from a clean slate – no, not a full windows clean install, but completely remove the network interface and re-install it. From what you describe, you have a Dell manager on the XP box too. In order to assist debug, I would uninstall that via the uninstall programs in the Control Panel. After the Dell manager layer has gone, I would uninstall the driver for the WiFi card in device manager and disable the device. Then re-boot the machine and go back to device manager to re-enable the device (it may be necessary to scan for hardware changes or XP may detect the “new” interface immediately). If necessary allow XP to download a driver automatically over the ethernet port. If there is no Microsoft driver for the port, try find the driver on the Dell site, but make sure it’s just the driver not a WiFi suite or manager. No need to adjust the device port settings, just let Windows manage it.

If that all goes according to plan, you should have a clean WiFi install without the Dell layer on top of the Windows Zero Configuration. So, now using the the Windows WiFi Connection wizard connect to the router (disconnect ethernet!) and see what the speeds are. Don’t use “Setup a new network connection” in the network connections window – I’m expecting you will get a “Wireless connections are available” pop-up message from the notification area and can connect through that simply by adding the WEP or WPA key rather than building a new network connection from scratch.

Make sure the Win7 machine is not using WiFi at the time. Even better, turn the Win7 box off, so there can be no contention at all.

Sorry, I’m, a little bit confused by your last updates. Perhaps it’s something I missed in your earlier posts, but are you connecting the XP laptop to the wireless router via the Win7 machine or are they connecting independently of each other to the router?

Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) from the Win7 box to the XP box may well give the bandwidth reduction you observe.

Do I need to uninstall XP wireless network manager if another network manager is installed with a driver?

The Dell connection manager is simply another layer on top of the hardware. You have only one physical WiFi interface and can receive data through that port using one connection manager at a time – the two can’t share the bandwidth simultaneously.

3rd-party managers are sometime fickle beasts and it’s possible the Dell manager has a problem. Unless there is a strong reason not to do so, I would revert to the inbuilt Windows Zero Configuration. Run services.msc and make sure the Windows Zero Configuration service is running and set to automatic, then disable the Dell connection manager (I’m guessing at this point that there is an option in the Dell manager to disable or use WZC rather than a full blown uninstall).

You should be able to connect using the standard XP Wireless connection wizard from there and, assuming the wireless card in the laptop is an 802.11g (rather than 802.11b), you should get a decent connection.

….actually, there’s another thought – check the WiFi interface in Device Manager and make sure it’s set to either 802.11g or 802.11b/g rather than 802.11b. The latter being a slower interface.

Like others, experience tells me that this is much more likely to be a hardware fail in the drive than a software configuration: beg, steal of borrow a drive off a friend or colleague for a couple of hours to fit it into the case. If it is recognised and reads DVD’s, it’s only a few quid to buy a new drive – much less stress than re-installing Windows only to find it still doesn’t work!

If you can’t find a spare drive from somewhere for half an hour, boot up the system using a Linux Live CD (make sure you run it live rather than install Linux on your HD!!), then try the suspect drive with a DVD – if it plays under Linux, you have a software fail on your Windows installation and could consider a re-image of Windows, but far more likely that the Linux Live session will fail to play the DVD too.

Ted, ruirib: you are correct to recommend a layered model.

I’m not familiar with Online Armour ++, but have plenty of experience of similar products. In Online Armour ++, do you have the capability to look at the logs? If so, I’m guessing that it probably hasn’t detected much in the way of bad stuff on your machines (network intrusion, malware signatures etc). However, to balance that argument, this is quite likely due to your experience and safe browsing habbits on the internet. For less informed users, additional protection might pickup malicious activity.

Perhaps this is more of a philosophical question: for inexperienced users, should we recommend patching the weak points (browsers and 3rd party software such as Flash, Java and Reader), should we recommend a safety net such as the security suite(s) discussed here, or should we educate the users. I think all three, but with a caveat – make sure the users understand what they are getting when they purchase a paid-for security suite. I see many users purchase products based on marketing and fluff rather than understanding (so we get back to education).

To return to the OP’s question: if you feel the need to use a 3rd party firewall, there have been some good suggestions here. However, if you are an experienced user who practices safe working and has an understanding of the threats, you may find that you are layering up too much.

Hi guys, regarding firewalls: In my opinion, it is better to use a good antivirus coupled with a hardware firewall and the Windows Firewall.

Your AV and the Windows Firewall will pickup and prevent outbound connections from software that is behaving in a way that it shouldn’t. The hardware firewall will prevent incoming attacks.

Third party software firewalls have been known to cause all manner of headaches. Not particularly for the technically minded such as on this forum, but definitely for the average man in the street who clicks on a alert message without fully understanding.

What hardware firewall you ask? Well you could start with the one in your dsl router. If you have a hardware firewall in your router, your third party software firewall is going to be busy doing nothing, working the whole day through, trying to find lots of things not to do (with acknowledgement to Disney, Bing Crosby et al.)