2 computers, Windows 7 and vista. Both have passwords to login to the system. I turned on the networking discovery and share folders and printer on both, turned on share public folder. Turned off the password protection on both. Turned off the firewall on both. Gave full control permission to each other. We are in the same "Workgroup". However, windows 7 can only open some public folders from the vista, but can't open the shared folder from the vista. It says "Windows can't access \\name-PC\\folder. You do not have permission to access \\name-PC\\folder. Contact your network administrator to request access." I tried to change windows 7 home network to work network, neither one is working. Why? and how would I be able to fix it? Thank YOU!

From the error message, it should be a network problem. How the two PCs are connected?

wired connection.

Check there is no connectivity problem between them. I recommand to you to use a cable and check if the problem is the same.

since I can open vista's public folder, I don't think there's problem on the connection

If you have no connectivity problem and your share and NTFS permissions are OK, you should not have this problem.

sigh.

Since you have disabled Password Protected Sharing, Windows 7 accesses network shares with Guest account. The Everyone group in Windows 7 does not include Guest account. Therefore please add Guest account into the permission list of the shared folders and give it proper permissions.Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.