I have been busy trying to copy files from a old XP machine to W8. The XP machine is connected by cable, the W8 machine by wifi. I am using a BT Homehub 2. Would it work, would it heck!

I do some googling and the first thing I find is that the Vista/Wn Homegroup improvement makes connecting with XP hard, hopefully not as hard as it was with Vista.

Rule No 1. Both machines must be in the same Workgroup.

I used the Network Setup Wizard on the XP machine to set up a home network and to ensure that there is a network with the workgroup name. I enabled XP simple file transfer.

I then spent a lot of time mucking around with the Network and Homegroup views of the W8 machine and while I could see the W7 machine, and all the printer/scanner’s personalities and the hub, I couldn’t see the XP machine. The XP machine can ‘ping’ the W8 machine using the ip address.

Did I say the W8 machine was new? I disabled the firewall and rebooted the machine as requested. The reboot turned on the firewall and installed 51 updates. (I am using McAfee.) I then created a folder, C:\share, which I shared out. There is some suggestion that W8 systems default to network discovery is off. I checked this, and it seemed OK, although only after this did the network browser ‘see’ itself.

On the XP system, I disabled the firewall, and then I opened “My Networks” and added a new place, using the tcp/ip address and the new folder. I was prompted for a login and so used the W8 login credentials. (These is a local login.) This worked and opened up a file explorer view on the w8 machine’s /share.

So I still don’t know why the W8 machine can’t ‘see’ the XP system in the network browser. I am advised it might be some hub configuration or hub firewall rules

Hope this helps someone, sorry that it’s not more accurate. Perhaps I’ll improve it next time I visit the W8 machine.

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