Trailblazin Ministries Blog

Tech Stuff

Vista Home Networking

Written by LaRosa Johnson
Wednesday, 29 August 2007
Filed under: Tech Stuff

When we first moved to Texas and got the money from selling our house in North Carolina, one of the first things I bought was a brand new (Vista) computer for my wife, since the one she had been using was over five years old (which got given to our son). At the time, I had an XP laptop, and I was able to get the two networking just fine without any major issues. After selling that laptop and purchasing a brand new Vista laptop, I couldn't get the two to network to save my life.

Now, this wasn't an issue when I first got the laptop because I wasn't worried about trying to network the two; my focus was on uninstalling all the junk that it comes with and putting on my desired applications (one of which being Windows Live OneCare, since I was giving that a try as my system's security suite, and had already been running it on the desktop). Once all of that was said & done and I was ready to network (to transfer files and setup the printer), I was unable to do so. Using Vista's network map, I could clearly see that my wife's computer was connected to the network & vice-versa, but I couldn't access them for the life of me, from either computer. So, I got online and tried every possible solution I could find to try and get the two networked. I followed all the steps and still no luck. The sad part is, I'm a techie and I used to do this for a living, so it shouldn't be a problem for me to get this working. After many failed attempts over the course of a month or two, I had given up.

Then yesterday, I decided that OneCare just wasn't working out for me; it was a system resource hog and I didn't feel the need to pay $49.95 a year for the software (my 60 day trial was coming to an end). I decided that based on the fact that Vista already comes with a built-in firewall and Defender pre-installed. All I needed was a free anti-virus package and I was set, so I decided to use AVG since it's light and pretty unintrusive (and free). So as I am uninstalling, and rebooting both computers, I just happened to open and check my network settings and what do I see? I see my wife's computer showing up and I'm able to access it! Go figure!

So, it looks like OneCare was the culprit the entire time that was keeping me from networking my two computers. It's a shame that it was Microsoft's own software that was hindering me, and I don't think I ever would have figured it out if I had decided to keep running it. So, as a word of advice, if you're on Vista and having problems setting up your home network, just make sure you don't have OneCare installed (or at least have the firewall set properly).