Trying to connect to a Win8.1 network drive

[DanGruzman]

Hi,

I'm having a problem that I gather is fairly common with Windows 8 machines, but I haven't been able to find the same case in other threads, nor a workable solution among similar cases.

I have two Windows computers: the main laptop on Win 7 and a hybrid tablet on Win 8.1. I would like for both devices to be able to access each other via my home network. So for both devices I've set the network settings to home/private, I turned on file sharing and discovery and even joined both devices to the same homegroup. The end result is that my Win8.1 tablet can access my Win7 laptop both through the homegroup and through direct network access.

The problem is that my Win7 laptop cannot do either of those with regard to the tablet: in all cases, I get the network error message that I cannot access the location and should check it for spelling.

To try to solve this issue, I have attempted:
-Turning off the Windows firewall on my Win8.1 tablet
-Looking around to see if I could find my Win8.1 tablet to unwittingly belong to some sort of domain (have not been able to figure that out).

The odd thing is that I also tried to test out the network by setting up iTunes on both devices and setting them to share their music libraries via home share, and sure enough both devices could access each other's libraries. Similarly, I was able to access my tablet from my Win7 laptop through a Remote Assistance invitation.

Would very much appreciate any advice I can get here! Thanks in advance!

 

[tipstir]

Which Windows 8.1 tablet is this Pro or RT? RT your can't not x86 or x64. Pro you can. Disable Homegroup. Use Workgroup and call it something other than Workgroup like: DANET for example
So do this on laptop and tablet. On laptop make sure the folder is shared out to you the admin or your name example Dan.

So you should have local account on your system called Dan with admin rights. Back on the tablet side you need to create a local account. Did you setup Microsoft account so your login with that account only. You need to create a local account and start using that. It can be done to access the Microsoft account while being on local account while your at home.

If away from home then sign on to Microsoft account to access the cloud features. Or still use the local account and have Microsoft account to access store and skydrive (aka onedrive).

 

[DanGruzman]

Thanks tipstir, it worked! Much appreciated!