Networking problem driving me crazy

I have 2 laptops on a home network I want to share files between.

One is running xp, one is running windows 7. I enabled sharing in the XP laptop by right clicking on the root drive and clicking through sharing and security, do you want to do this blah blah. Then I went over to my windows 7 laptop (double checked sharing settings, everything was turned on to share) and the xp computer shows up under networks. But, when I click on the xp computer icon to access it I get a password prompt that doesnt work with any password at all. Conversely, I can see my w7 laptop in xp and access everything no problem.

Both are under the same workgroup. I tried initially with both having the same username and password. I then tried changing the username and pass on the 7 laptop and adding in the 'new' user under computer management in xp. Nothing is working. This is driving me crazy, I have googled till my eyes bled and tried many tutorials and steps again and again.

Why would it work under xp but not under 7? I have disabled avast on my xp machine but I dont see how that matters since the xp machine accesses the 7 machine which has avast running.

Please let me know if you guys have any tips.

 

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