Solved Windows 8 slow to find Windows 7 pc on network

Ok .. I have 2 computers, Win 7 Home Edition and Win 8.1 Simple.
They are pretty standard .. with a router in between them. (both computers are trusted on the router .. by their mac address and there are no settings restricting anything between the two).

But the issue is that the Windows 8 pc is slow to connect to the Windows 7 pc. I want to transfer files from Win 8 to Win 7 pc .. and almost never the reverse.

It is SLOW to detect the other pc on the network. That is weird to me as is should be fast fast fast .. ?

I always get .. this, but it is a valid network location.

Guess I cannot paste in my error ... but it says

"The drive or network connection that the shortcut 'Win7-Etrunk.lnk' refers to is unavailable. Make sure that the disk is properly inserted or the network resource is available, and then try again."


I only want to transfer normally 1 file .. about 300 kb. So it should be super fast right, cause that is not a big thing I am asking it to do.

The thing is not really the file .. but more the ability for the Windows 8 pc to see the Win 7 pc.

What can I do to test where the bottleneck is ?

I am reasonable capable but I do not know much about networking .. however the directory I want to copy into is shared and works.

Just the actual connection seems really really slow ..

Any help would be appreciated.
Kevin

If you dig through previous posts on here. There was a particular Microsoft update that is the cause of this.

Ok .. thanks. I actually made some changes .. and I think that the problem is fixed.

Once it is connected it is blazing fast .. as the computers and router are less than 6 ft apart and all running reasonably new hardware.

I will know in the next few days how things are working .. and yes if I have further issues I will look around.

I am not so sure it is fixed .. it does take a long time for the Windows 7 computer to be seen on the network. But I can surf on the net on that computer .. it just seems to be the lan access that is slow.

But .. I did test it, and I transferred a 1.2 GB file from one pc to the other (Win8 to Win7 machine) .. and it took 19 sec about 63 MB/sec.

So I am not complaining about the network speed ... just the time it takes for the Windows 7 machine to be seen by the Windows 8 machine.

I will keep looking ..

I did a test .. I pinged my Win7 machine from the Windows 8 machine .. "ping IPADDRESS -t -w 10" ..
and had to wait about 1 min 20 sec before I had a solid connection to the machine and could access my file share.

The funny thing is that I can go on the internet on the Window 7 machine .. and surf within mere seconds of getting to the desktop. I can go to new sites .. so nothing is cached.

So .. it is much faster for that machine to access the net than accessing it from my Windows 8 pc. So .. is this a Windows 8 issue .. or Windows 7 ? And how can I test this. I am not a networking guy .. but I do know a bit about networking.

Is this out of the ordinary .. or am I just impatient ?

I did another test .. pinged my Windows 8 pc from the Windows 7 pc .. and the same results. About 1 min 20 or so for one pc to see the other one.

That is almost pointing me to the router ... or the Norton Internet Security software on each computer.

The connection to the Internet is active like after a second or two after boot up.

Looking for thoughts ... it is not the end of the world as they will eventually see each other but it is a pain.

Tried Safe Mode with Networking ... was better. About 30 sec to respond to a ping request.

Did you try without firewall ?

Have this issue on numerous networks using dhcp. Assigning IP addresses to each machine has solved the problem on every one.

edmscan said:

I did another test .. pinged my Windows 8 pc from the Windows 7 pc .. and the same results. About 1 min 20 or so for one pc to see the other one.

That is almost pointing me to the router ... or the Norton Internet Security software on each computer.

The connection to the Internet is active like after a second or two after boot up.

Looking for thoughts ... it is not the end of the world as they will eventually see each other but it is a pain.

Click to expand...

Norton is by far the most likely cause of the slow ping response and other connection issues.

chev65 said:

edmscan said:

I did another test .. pinged my Windows 8 pc from the Windows 7 pc .. and the same results. About 1 min 20 or so for one pc to see the other one.

That is almost pointing me to the router ... or the Norton Internet Security software on each computer.

The connection to the Internet is active like after a second or two after boot up.

Looking for thoughts ... it is not the end of the world as they will eventually see each other but it is a pain.

Click to expand...

Norton is by far the most likely cause of the slow ping response and other connection issues.

Click to expand...

Second that, Norton knows to be overly aggressive.

Well ... interesting. I disabled my Norton software and guess what. The problem is gone. I will look into it .. thanks for your help on this one. At least I know where to look now.

It is actually the "Smart Firewall" .. not so smart I guess.

Problem now resolved.

Thanks ..

edmscan said:

Problem now resolved.

Thanks ..

Click to expand...

I pretty much figured that was it. Norton is famous for this.