Hi.

Ive been trying to share files between my windows 8 x64 laptop and my windows xp x86 desktop.  They are on the same workgroup, both computers can see and ping eachother, and my windows 8 machine is sharing a printer from the xp machine.  The windows 8 machine does not appear in My Network Places on the xp machine however, and when I go to access the windows 8 machine from the workgroup map on xp, it asks me for a password.  This is particularly strange as I dont use a password on either machine, so there is no password!  I do NOT want to resort to using OneDrive unless absolutely necessary.

If anyone could give me a hand with this, I would be grateful.

Cheers   

FeenixSharing files between windows 7 and windows XP
You must have file sharing sharing TURNED on. Try shearing a small folder. In windows XP there is a folder called 'shared documents' and you can set it for sharing on the network. Set up a user that has a password. Use that to log into the windows 7 computer.
For more info, here is a link:
Sharing files between windows 7 and windows XP
This has been covered before on CH forum.
Earlier posts about Windows 7 and XP file sharing.
Does that help?
Hi

Was looking for help with windows 8/xp rather than windows 7/xp.  Didnt have a problem with windows 7/xp, just windows 8 being a pain...My bad. Somehow I thought you were ruing windows 7.
The link below is a more broad coverage of the issue.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/sharing-files-printers-help#sharing-files-and-printers=windows-xp&v1h=win81tab1&v2h=win7tab1&v3h=winvistatab1&v4h=winxptab1
Quote

If all the PCs on your network are RUNNING Windows 7, Windows 8.1, or Windows RT 8.1, we recommend creating a homegroup instead of using this tutorial. It gives you a much easier way to share files and printers on a HOME network. For a step-by-step tutorial on creating and using a homegroup, see HomeGroup from start to finish.