Windows 7 comes with a great feature called HomeGroup that makes sharing between windows 7 machines very easy. We have already written on sharing files and printers between Windows 7 based computers here:
How to Share Files and Printers between Windows 7 Based Computers with HomeGroup
Unfortunately, HomeGroup feature is not compatible with Windows XP and Vista. In this guide, you’ll learn how to enable file sharing between Windows 7 and Windows XP.
Sharing Files Between Windows 7 and Windows XP
Make sure both of the machines are on the same Workgroup which by default is named WORKGROUP.
From your Windows 7 machine, go to:
Control Panel > Network and Internet > Network and Sharing Center
Now click on Change advanced sharing settings.
Choose your desired options under Advanced Sharing Settings for the Home or Work and Public profile.
Now scroll down to the bottom of the list and choose turn off password protection if you want to give access to all users to your public shares.
If you want to turn it on then only those XP machines users having a user account and password on this machine (Windows 7) can access shared files, printers attached to this machine and Public folders.
Save the changes if you made any.
Now go to Network in your Windows 7. There you should see your Windows 7 and Windows XP machines .
Sharing Printers
In order to share printer on Windows 7 machine with Windows XP machines, go to:
Start Menu > Devices and Printers
Now double click on the printer icon.
Next double click on Customize your printer.
Now go to the Sharing Tab (Click on change sharing options button) and check the box to share the printer and type in its share name.
In case your XP machine is an x64 OS you can install Additional Drivers before setting up the XP machine.
Now if you go to Network and double click on you Windows 7 machine icon. There you will find everything you have shared from your Windows 7 machine.
Open the Users folder and then Public folder to see the shared items. You can create folders to keep things managed.
Now from your Windows XP machine go to My Network Places. There you’ll find Shared folders of Windows 7.
If you double click the shared folder , you’ll come up with the list of folder available in the Public folder of Windows 7.
If you’ve enabled password protection, then you’ll be asked to input a username and password for the user account of the Windows 7 machine.
Add a Shared Printer to Windows XP
Here we have a printer that’s connected with Windows 7 machine and is shared over the network. In order to use that printer from XP, you need to setup it in Xp first.
Let’s setup that shared printer in the Windows XP.
To set up the shared printer in XP, go to:
Start Menu > Printers and Faxes > Add a Printer
A wizard will open up. Hit the Next button.
Select A network printer, or a printer attached to another computer.
Click Next.
Now select Connect to this printer (…) and type in the path for the printer connected to the Windows 7 machine.
Hit the Next button.
A confirmation message will appear, just hit the Yes button.
Then finally hit the Finish button to complete the Wizard and get the Printer installed.
In some cases you will need to install the x86 XP drivers for the shared printer because the Windows 7 drivers are not compatible with XP. When everything is installed open up Printers and Faxes to find the shared printer.
This is it.
Now you can get started with sharing files with Windows 7 and Windows XP based machines. You might need to restart your Windows XP machines a couple of times in order to see the shared items of Windows 7 machine.
You may also interested:
- Share Internet Connection Windows 7
- Share Mac files with Windows 7
- Turn off file sharing Windows 7
- Share files Windows 7 homegroup
- Remote access Mac from Windows
- or more in Windows 7 section
Don’t forget to share your experience on Sharing files between Windows 7 and Windows XP.
View Comments (53)
I successfully shared files between windows 7 and xp thanks for the guide
I have some computer running xp and a computer running windows 7 thanks for giving this nice guide to share files between different os computers.
Hi, my issue is that nobody in our network can see mee. Nevertheless, I can see other users.
Can you please help?
PS: I use Windows 7 and the other users use XP.
Did you follow the above mentioned steps on both OS?
Hi, I did however the other computers could see mine after 15 minutes. So I got it, thank you for your support.
Great!
I got enable file sharing between Windows 7 & XP
I did successful experience to share files between windows 7 and windows xp with you instructions.
you are doing pretty nice job continue this work
Now, I can share files between Windows 7 & Windows XP... Thanks a lot for helping me out.. =)
you are blessing to me ... thank you ... finally got 'em together ... woohoo !! ♥
everything points to having a printer on the windows 7 machine but not on the xp machine with w7 trying to access it.
I have two xp machines that work fine with printer sharing. both machine running xp pro. printer connected to one. all workgroups are called "home". now trying to get the w7 machine to see the xp printer. everything I try comes back printer not found or cannot connect to the network, etc. I must be doing something wrong or missed something. need help please.
Hi Pamarc, does you the machine which owns the printer have a firewall? If it is the case, you have to untick don't allow exceptions and you will be able to find your printer while your automatically search for it.
Just running Kapersky, but I'll try shutting it for the browse. My other xp machine had no trouble finding the printer with it on.
How is your W7 machine connected to the network? Can you share files?
Tried clicking off Kaspersky, still couldn't find the printer by browsing or naming the computer and printer. W7 is connected through a wireless router. 2 XP machines are through cable. Went through all the steps again that trickyguy laid out.
Windows 7 is coooool, i just switched from XP and thanks for solving the sharing problem.
I did all that, I disabled password protect sharing and homegroups making it use the NT acounts, but it still doesn't work. Funny I got my Tablet with Window 7 64 Bit, My Desktop Windows 7 installation, and my other computer at school working, but this one is being so stubborn.
NVM figured it out, the person who uses this machine in the morning class installed Kaspersky and it was blocking it. I confirmed this when exiting made it work. I then found a more permanent solution (opposed to exiting it each time) by changing the the network type for the VM Ware network zone to Trusted Network from Internet (all new networks have their types set to Internet by default?)