When I open the Network folder inside Windows Explorer on my Windows 7 computer I see a list of computer names (most of them are Windows XP machines). If I double-click a Windows 7 machine it opens that machine and shows all of its shares. However, if I double-click on a Windows XP machine it hangs for about twenty seconds then returns the following error message:
Network Error
Windows cannot access \\Windows XPcomputername
Check the spelling of the name. Otherwise, there might be a problem with your network. To try to identify and resolve network problems, click Diagnose.
Error code: 0x80070035 The network path was not found.
I can ping the Windows XP computer by name, I can connect to it from another Windows XP computer on the domain, I can double-click on the server machine and it will open correctly (running Windows Server 2003 for Small Business Server). I have been troubleshooting this for about 8 hours already (disabled my firewall, no help; disabled IPv6, no help; attempted to connect to IP address of Windows XP computer, no help; verified NetBIOS is enabled).
The thing I can't understand is that I was able to do this without any problem up until a few months ago. Something changed, but I don't know what. I have found several forums where Windows 7 users have reported this problem. Anybody have any new ideas?
UPDATE: I am able to connect to Windows XP computers on a different domain. (I do consulting work and I am a domain admin for several of my customers.) This makes me think that there may be some difference in network policy settings that is causing problems in Windows 7 <--> Windows XP communication/authentication.
UPDATE: The domain where I can connect to Windows XP computers uses DHCP. The domain where I'm having problems uses static IPs. On this problem domain my assigned static IP is in a different subnet (255.255.255.128) than the computers I'm trying to connect to (255.255.255.192). Could this be the problem?
UPDATE: If I ping my machine by name on the network where I am having problems, it resolves my name to an IPv6 address rather than IPv4. As far as I can tell, all the other computers on the network resolve to IPv4 addresses. Is it possible that my computer ended up in a name server with an IPv6 address and that is causing my problems? If so, is there any way to force the name server to store my IPv4 address instead?