Help With Setting Up Homegroup

I recently moved in with a friend, and we're having trouble setting up file sharing. His PC is connected directly (via ethernet cable) to an Actiontec M1424WR wireless router, which is broadcasting a WEP-secured wireless network. My PC is connected wirelessly (via an RNX-N180UBE usb adapter). Both machines are running Windows 7. Internet access is great. We tried to set up a homegroup, however, and are getting nothing but problems.


He created a homegroup on his PC, gave me the password, and I joined on my PC. It said it joined and asked me what I wanted to share, but that's as far as we can get. Here's a list of problems we're having:


- On his PC, when he goes to the Homegroup page, it says "no other Homegroup computers are available."
- On my PC's Homegroup page, I see his computer name listed, and when I open it it shows libraries, but when I double click them it nothing happens
- He right-clicked his "downloads" folder and did "share with -> Homegroup;" I see it in my PC's Homegroup page but when I try to open it, the system thinks for a while before popping up a "cannot access" message
- I also shared a folder of mine to the Homegroup but, since he can't even see my PC, he can't see the folder
- I ran IPCONFIG on both machines; his machine's IP is 192.168.1.2; my machine's IP is 192.168.1.5
- When I ping his machine from my machine, I get "request timed out"
- When I ping my machine from his machine, I get replies.
- When I ping the router from my machine, I get replies.
- He has a printer. On my Homegroup page, it tells me that it has detected a new printer, but the "Install Now" button does nothing.


I've gone into Network and Sharing Center -> Advanced Sharing Settings and enabled "Allow Windows to manage homegroup connections." I did this on both machines.


He runs a VPN on his machine. Thought that might be the problem, so we turned it off but nothing changed. I run both Hamachi and Tunngle on my machine. Disabled both of those but nothing changed.


Anyone have any ideas? If you need any other info, let me know. Thanks!

A few quick suggestions:

1. Make sure the date/time are correct on your PC.
2. Make sure both PCs have unique "computer name"
*note* #1 and #2 have nothing to do with why your ping requests are failing from his machine to yours, but they take two seconds to check and can save a lot of headache.

3. Disable any software based firewall or anti-virus you may have running. If his machine can't ping yours, that is an obvious first step. Sometimes disabling is not enough, you may have to try uninstalling to test it for sure.
4. Verify neither of you are on a vpn connection when tyring to get homegroup to work.
5. If you've tried everything and still can't get it to work, sometimes simply leaving the homegroup and rejoining can fix it.

1. Date/time are correct on both.
2. Both have unique names.
3. Disabled AVG on both with no luck. Can try uninstalling them tomorrow.
4. Just to clarify, his machine (the one directly connected to the router) can ping my machine (the one connected wirelessly). I cannot ping his machine from mine.
5. Tried leaving and rejoining with no luck.

Ah, if you can't ping his machine, then his machine (the one hard wired) probably has a software based firewall or antivirus solution preventing you from pinging the machine. Another likely suspect, though you sound like you ruled it out, is his machine was in fact connected to the vpn when you tried to ping/connect to it.