Printer sharing in Windows Vista Home Premium

[Hoov]

Windows Firewall, Windows Defender, Security Center are all not listed in your services? That might be the tip of the problem. Did you uninstall them?

[zinzah]

no...i did have some major spyware issues with "consrv.dll" and the Vista 2012 **** a while back..(2 months ago?). Possible when I cleaned that up?

[Hoov]

With everything that is missing, and the fact that you had a problem, I believe your best course of action is to do a repair install of Vista. Do you have a Vista install DVD of the same type that your computer is running?

[zinzah]

Yes. I'll have to dig it out...I'll run it tonight....Anything special to look for/do/not do?

[Hoov]

There are some really good instructions here.

[zinzah]

  WOO HOO!!!!!

Finally managed to get firewall back in/on...the re-install /repair didn't do it, but you pointed me in the right direction....
After many googles, forums/ downloads/registry backups and attempts......this seemed to so the trick!!
http://www.sevenforums.com/system-security/202166-unable-start-windows-firewall-2.html#post1702093

As I said AFTER MANY REGISTRY BACKUPS...i don't know if this will work for everyone or anyone else...but the d/l and running of the firewall.reg seems to have fixed my issue...

Hoov...I can't thank you enough for your help!!!!

Chris

[Hoov]

So all the network items are working? Printer sharing and the like?

[zinzah]

Ummm. I may have spoken too soon.....Was up until 2am....it seems that the computers can see each other (show full map) and ping each other....but can't share files of printers.......at least we are heading in the right direction......

[Hoov]

What happens when you go into the network and sharing center and try turning on file and printer sharing?

[zinzah]

On the Vista machine (the one with all the issues), all options in Sharing can be turned on now(I have password protected sharing off), except Network Discovery. Seems part of the issue - from what i read a little last night - was that network discovery does not get set to ON...it will only get set to CUSTOM...
AVAST and SuperAntiSpyware are turned off
Windows Firewall and Defender are off
SSDP Discovery
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper
Computer Browser
Server
Function Discovery Resource Publication are all automatic and started
uPnP was off - now on - and was able to get Network Discovery to turn on....

Both machines see each other in the "View Full Map"...the vista machine can ping the laptop(Windows 7), but the laptop can't ping the vista machine

[Hoov]

Is this connection going thru a router?

[zinzah]

ok...somehow the vista machine has windows firewall back on...both have it off now.....
and yes it goes thru a router @ 192.168.1.1 (vista is 1.5, laptop windows 7 is 1.2)

[zinzah]

and i just noticed that on Vista, there is Windows Firewall AND Windows Firewall with Advanced Security. I just made sure BOTH are turned off. Rebooting.......

[Hoov]

Also check in the router to make sure that some kind of network protection is not turned on. Some have parental settings that can hose up sharing.

[zinzah]

router is a Netgear WGR614v7....does not seem to be any parental controls