I have 2 computers running Windows 7 on a home network (Ethernet). Both computers were joined in a Windows Homegroup and shared a printer attached to the primary PC. When I recently updated Norton 360 to the latest version, the secondary PC no longer could access the shared printer. I made 2 mistakes by removing the shared printer from the secondary PC and then by unjoining the secondary PC from the homegroup. I could not re-establish the homegroup or access to the shared printer from the secondary PC. It turns out that homegroup can be established and joined ONLY with the Windows 7 native firewall running and no third party firewalls.
After a lot of research on both the Norton and Windows forums, here's the solution I found to work:
- Uninstall Norton 360 from each PC, making sure that the Windows native firewall is turned on after the Norton uninstall completes (Norton does turn it back on by default).
- Make sure that the homegroup is still established on the primary PC (Control Panel/Homegroup) and note the password
- Make sure that the printer is set up for sharing on the primary PC (Start/Printers and right-click properties on the printer and go to the sharing tab)
- Join this homegroup on the secondary PC with the same password (Control Panel/Homegroup)
- On the secondary PC, go to Start/printers and click on add a printer. Windows should find the shared printer on the primary PC. Highlight it and click Next -- Windows should recognize it and download any drivers needed. Print a test page.
- On the primary PC, re-install Norton 360 by logging into your account on Norton.com and downloading the current version.
- On the primary PC, after installation, open Norton 360, click on Tasks and then on Network map. Assuming both the primary and secondary PC's are shown, high light the secondary PC and edit to make it fully trusted.
- On the secondary PC, re-install Norton 360. Make sure that the secondary PC is still in the homegroup (Control Panel/homegroup) and that the shared printer is still functioning (Start/Printers, right-click on Properties for the printer and print a test page). It is not necessary on the secondary PC to open Norton 360/Tasks/Network map and change the trust levels.
It may be possible to avoid uninstalling and re-installing Norton 360 by simply turning off the Norton firewall and turning on the Windows firewall and then going through the homegroup setup/joining process -- I did not test this approach.