Windows 8, can't turn on media streaming?

[Entropism]

Up until recently, I've had a home network set up between my desktop, 2 laptops, and a WD Live+ box with an external HDD hooked up to it. I was able to use my desktop to move files over the network directly to that external, so I can watch them on my TV. And then, I reinstalled windows...

Now, I'm trying to get everything set up again, and googling told me to activate streaming through WMP. When I try, it says that "media streaming cannot turn on" and directs me to services.msc. I've set all the services they mentioned to automatic, but I still can't get anything fixed.

I can:

1 - access files on my laptop through my desktop and vice versa.
2 - Access files on the external HDD connected to the WD live+ through the laptop, but NOT the desktop

The laptop was also a new reformat, after I upgraded from Win7 to Win8. Still can't seem to get streaming activated on the desktop though, not sure why.

I'd rather not reinstall windows (again), but as a last resort I guess I'd have to. Anyone have any suggestions, or need further info?
__________________

 

[amenx]

Did you go to the advanced sharing settings in the Network and Sharing applet in CP? There you should find more settings for media streaming and a list of the devices you allow to share through.

p.s. I'm assuming the windows 8 sharing features are similar to win 7, hence the above suggestion.

 

[Entropism]

Yessir, one of the first things I did. For some reason, it seems like it's blocked by a windows service. I tried doing a selective startup, and it was still blocked when I disabled 3rd party startup items, but when I disabled ALL startup options (MS included) it worked [at least until the next, (normal) reboot]

 

[Entropism]

Anyone have any ideas? Rather not reformat for something like this

 

[Rhonda the Sly]

Charms > Settings > Wifi > Right Click Connection > Turn Sharing On or Off

 

[Entropism]

Like I said, that doesn't work. Something is blocking it from actually turning streaming on.

Edit: Here, this is what I'm getting:

http://i.imgur.com/LiFdclf.jpg

The dependencies are turned on, everything SHOULD be working. It just... isn't.

 

[Rhonda the Sly]

What happens when you try to restart the network service, or its dependencies? Do they go down and come back up without issue? And does event viewer have any events related to this?

 

[Entropism]

All the dependencies are running, actually. When I try to start "Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service", I get an "Error 1068: The Dependency Service or Group Failed To Start"

Dependencies are:

*SSDP Discovery
*UPNP Device Host

 

[Entropism]

Anyone have ideas?

 

[Entropism]

Nobody?