Confusing home network problem :S

[festa_freak]

Okay, hello. I had a network perfectly set up during the summer. I would go on the network and be able to access anything on the C drive of any computer, program files, everything. I wasn't using homegroups as some computers were still using XP. Let's just focus on using Win7 for now (XP machine isn't a priority).
In the fall I had to start working out of town and there is an open wifi network there. I changed my computer name and settings (under the public network) to button up my computer on an open network. So now I'm at home and want to transfer new music, movies, games etc. and I cannot connect to anything. I have users with passwords. I've tried setting password sharing on/off, and a few other options nothing worked.
Okay then, the weird thing. I have a laptop with a computer name of SAGER and a desktop with a computer name DAD-PC. My laptop doesn't have an E: drive but when I click the SAGER in the network it shows an E: drive. I can't access it of course but when I go to public, there is a file in video's about NVIDIA. My laptop doesn't have an NVIDIA card, but my Dad's computer does. So when I click SAGER in the network window, it takes me to my dads computer. On my sager, when I click sager it just has C: and program files(x86) (shared that myself to test if it worked, didn't) So what the heck is going on! I've never seen this before. I turn of my dads computer and sager disappears so somehow they are linked.

Such a weird problem! I just discovered that my dads computer was using a homegroup (only one doing so in the house) I turned that off and no change. still all messed up. Help? 🙁

EDIT. Wow. I had this looking nice. now it's just a big wall of text :/ Fixed!

 

[Fardringle]

Did you change your computer name and workgroup name back to what they were before you changed it while traveling?

 

[festa_freak]

workgroup is just that, WORKGROUP. default in win7. I just left my computer name 'SAGER' instead of 'myname-laptop' because I didn't think it made a difference :/

well i just tried the homegroup thing and it didnt work either. when i click a library on the network owned by sager it just does nothing. so dumb!

 

[festa_freak]

Well. Woke up this morning and I turned on both computers and I clicked them in network and got a login screen (more than I got yesterday) and typed in the user name and password and it worked :/ Did this on both computers and it works flawlessly.

I have no idea what was going on yesterday but I didn't change anything since I stopped trying yesterday and it works now.
Sorry for anyone who searches this in the future and doesn't get a concrete answer because I have none to give.

I can say my settings though:
128bit encryption
password sharing - ON
Use user accounts and passwords to connect to other computers is selected
Everything else is ON.

I don't know if I had to do this but I made different user accounts on each machine to log into from the other.

 

[Zxian]

Well. Woke up this morning and I turned on both computers and I clicked them in network and got a login screen (more than I got yesterday) and typed in the user name and password and it worked :/ Did this on both computers and it works flawlessly.

This was probably the solution to your troubles (the full shutdown and startup). The Windows file sharing system "assumes" a server is in place (SMB was initially developed with server-client connections in mind - not homegroup sharing). If no Windows server is found on the network, the first computer turned on assumes the role as the Master Browser. If you then shut down the MB while keeping the other systems on (and expect them to communicate to each other), things can go a little awry.

 

[Dstoop]

Another thing to consider is whether or not you're using DHCP at home. If the lease on your computer expired while you weren't at home, and you got a totally different IP address from the new network you connected from, when you came back you may have been given a different IP than the one you had before. Regular old workgroup discovery can get wonky when you pull a PC out of the network and put it back in like that until all the PCs involved restart or rediscover each other.

Also double check that network discovery is actually turned on on all the computers involved. If one has it on, and the other doesnt, you can also see problems like the one you had.