Earlier I was perusing my Windows 7 search from Twitter when I came across this comment from @tay187:

…just wrote my first tutorial on how to file share between Windows XP and Windows 7…

I was intrigued by the comment because I have seen others run into problems sharing files between these two OS’s.  So I contacted him and asked if I could post his tutorial as a guest entry here at the site and he said that would be fine.

I feel obliged to warn you – @tay187 is talking about editing the registry in Windows XP. Make sure you back stuff up and are comfortable doing that type of thing before you undertake this process. 

Here you go:

1. You need to add (edit) a registry file

2. On your Windows XP Machine – Click ‘Start’, type ‘regedit’ and press Enter

3. Go to the Path:

   1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

   2. SYSTEM

   3. CurrentControlSet

   4. Services

   5. LanmanServer

   6. Parameters

   7. In this directory, if the file “IRPStackSize” doesn’t exist, Right Click and add it (making sure of your spelling and capitalization and no extra spaces) Make it a DWORD type file and choose the Decimal Value to be 20. If no option is given to change the decimal value, create the file then right click on it and choose edit to edit the decimal value. Make the value 20. (If doing this still doesn’t work, come back after the reboot and change to somewhere between 20 and 30, but 20 worked for me)

   8. Press Ok

   9. Reboot

1. Once Rebooted you should be able to share the default shared directory on XP with Windows 7

How to Share Individual Files on Windows XP with a Windows 7 Machine:

1. Do the above registry edit first

2. Right click the desired folder to be shared

   1. Click ‘Sharing and Security’

   2. Click the Radio Button Labeled: ‘Share This Folder’

   3. Choose the name you wish it to be shared as

   4. Click ‘Permissions’ button

   5. Choose ‘Everyone’ edit the desired permissions and click ok

1. Click the ‘Security’ tab

2. Add ‘Everyone’ to share with

3. Again, choose the permissions desired

4. Press Ok

   - DONE

To Share Individual Folders From Windows 7 to a Windows XP Machine:

Note: To turn Windows File and Printer Sharing on is NOT necessary for this to work

1. Right click the folder you want to share

2. Click the ‘Sharing’ tab

3. Click ‘Share’

   1. Type ‘Everyone’ and click ‘Add’

   2. Choose your permission levels

   3. Click ‘Share’

1. Click ‘Advanced Sharing’ on the left hand side

2. Make sure the ‘Share This Folder’ box is checked

3. Choose a name you want the folder to be shared as (permissions here need to be changed in order to read/write)

4. Click Ok

Notes:

1. If password file sharing is turned on in Windows 7, the user wanting to access the file must know the user name and password of the machine trying to be accessed otherwise they will not be able to access the folder

1. To Turn Windows 7 File Sharing On:

   1. Click ‘Start’

   2. Go to ‘Control Panel’

   3. Change ‘View By:’ to Large Icons (in the upper right)

   4. Click ‘Network and Sharing Center’

   5. Click ‘Change Advanced Sharing Settings’

   6. Click the radio button to Allow ‘File and Printer Sharing’

   7. Scrolling down on this page is also where you can find the option to turn on/off password protected file sharing

Please take a moment to let us know if this works for you.

Thanks @tay187 for sharing this with everyone.

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