Windows – Create homegroup between Windows 8 and Windows 7 machines

homegroupwindowswindows 7windows 8wireless-networking

I am trying to create a Homegroup through my wifi network between my

  • PC (Windows 7) and
  • Office Laptop (Windows 8)

When I create a Homegroup network using my PC then I can see all shared files in my laptop but I can't see shared files and even laptop name on my PC.

When I created a Homegroup from my Laptop, I can't see that there is a Homegroup available on my PC.

When I checked control panel -> windows firewall in my office laptop, I saw this image.

enter image description here

I can't even click any of the links in the above form page due to lack of admin privileges.

What could be the problem?

Is it because I don't have admin privileges to my office laptop?

EDIT: I talked with my office admin. He said that there might be problem with my Home PC. He checked my laptop and said there is nothing which is blocking. I checked my home PC, everything looks fine. please give me some points on assumption which might help me to solve this issue. also I can provide more info if needed.

EDIT 2: Just trying provide brief information. From office laptop, I can access already shared common folders like "My pictures", "My videos", "My Documents" etc.. of other Home PC but can't access the folders which I am sharing for example, I have one folder on Home PC which has movies in it. when I right clicked it and said shared in home group (can read/write), I can't access it. I can see that folder from my laptop but I can't access it. there is a error like – "you don't have enough permissions".

From my Home PC, I can't even see my office laptop name in home group.

One of the users in super user chat has told me to do following:

Don't even think about a home group; you are way overcomplicating this… just turn on shared folder for your user account (or for a whole drive) on the computer you're able to ping from the other computer, then type in Windows Explorer: \1.2.3.4\ShareName where 1.2.3.4 is the IP address assigned to the internal NIC of your other computer and ShareName is the name given to the shared folder/drive
it's not rocket science.. you don't need something called a home group to get folder sharing working
those damn things almost never work anyway because the security settings are always so locked down that it won't let it work

I did same but didn't work for me.

Best Answer

There are two possible reasons I can see for your problems :

  1. IPv6 is not turned on on both computers and/or in the router
  2. The Windows 8 computer uses a Live login while Windows 7 uses a local one

Both computers should be fully patched, including optional Windows Updates

For the second problem, you will need to change the Windows 8 login to local.

You will also need to fulfill all the HomeGroup Requirements in Windows 8/8.1 :

  • All PCs in the homegroup must each have network sharing turned on.
  • All PCs in the homegroup must each have network discovery turned on for the Private network profile.
  • All PCs in the homegroup must each have the correct date and time set.
  • All PCs in the homegroup must each have a different PC name.
  • All PCs in the homegroup must have the same workgroup name.
  • All PCs in the homegroup must have the services below and their dependencies set to Running (start). They are by default.
    • DNS Client
    • Function Discovery Provider Host
    • Function Discovery Resource Publication
    • HomeGroup Listener
    • HomeGroup Provider
    • Network List Service
    • Peer Networking Grouping
    • Server
    • SSDP Discovery
    • UPnP Device Host
  • All PCs in the homegroup must have their network connection adapter settings below turned on (checked) in its Properties.
    • File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks
    • Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6)
    • Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4)
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