Try going through this
Windows Networking – Vista and WinXP
1) Firewall settings - one of the biggest hassles. To get started I suggest you FIRST disconnect your network from the internet (for your protection), then disable ALL firewalls (including Windows firewall) on ALL machines, and then work to get your home network operating internally. What I learned on my home network is below.
1.1) My WinXP machines have ZoneAlarm and I needed to ensure that all machines on the network were in the trusted zone. Go to the Zone tab of Firewall settings in ZoneAlarm free version. Ensure all of your machines' IP addresses are listed, as well as that of your router or wireless access point.
1.2) My Vista laptop came loaded with Norton Internet Security. Go to Norton Internet Security tab, open settings, scroll to bottom, open internet security and firewall options. First open Trust Control under Personal Firewall and ensure your router and other networked pc's are shown in the Trusted tab – if not, add them. Then, open advanced settings, open configure, change default inbound NetBIOS, inbound NetBIOS name, and Block Windows File Sharing to ALLOW. Configuring this beast of an app required a lot of trial, error and googling the Symantec site and others.
2) Ensure sharing is enabled on all machines. It is quite different for Vista vs WinXP. The procedure is fairly straightforward and is well documented on the MS site and elsewhere. In Network and Sharing Center it is critical on Vista machine that you have your network configured as Private and that the Sharing and Discovery Settings are set to ON except for Password Protected Sharing.
Link for Vista:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/net.../vista_fp.mspx
Link for WinXP:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en
3) Workgroup name. Ensure you are using the same workgroup name on all machines. WinXP and Vista machines have different default workgroup names.
WinXP:
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d....mspx?mfr=true
Vista:
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Win...fcead1033.mspx
and
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Win...7e35f1033.mspx
4) Download and install Link Layer Topology Discovery (LLTD) onto the WinXP machines. Just a nicety, this enables the network map in Vista to show all machines on the network.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...DisplayLang=en
5) And the final step: check the registry on your WinXP machine per MS article 913628 that I found by searching MS for "error message when you try to access a Windows XP-based network computer: "You might not have permission to use this network resource". See the article at:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/913628. This finally did the trick for my network.
6) Check-out this link:
http://forums.microsoft.com/technet/...3125&siteid=17
7) Try a search for your problem in the below link:
http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/...=716&SiteID=17
The TechNet site has been the most helpful for me in the past.