I don't think that this really counts as networking, but that is the nearest on offer.

My system consists of two laptops running 7, 1, sometimes two desktops, running XP, 1 Laptop running Ubuntu, and one desktop running something that looks like a cross between Unix and Sun Systems.

My main problem is that the Win 7 machines wont talk to the other machines, beyond taking small amounts of data from them, but refusing access to all of them.

My XP,Ubuntu, and the "whateveritis" machines all communicate quite happily.

... If somewhat slowly.

What I want to do, is bypass all the silly protocols, and hard wire the damn things so that they will pass data to each other at something like the speeds that the component manufacturers claim possible.

Or at least at something like the speeds that the HDDs are supposed to be able to handle.

My latest effort to move a chunk of data from the machine that was assembling and processing it, to a large storage disk in another machine, was just silly:

11 GB == 5 Hrs.

There has got to be a faster way.

Any ideas anybody?

this is just one thing that come on the top of my mind if you want to do the transfer via external hard drive or flash disk

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temporarily disconnect the source computer from the network, temporarily disable the antivirus, and start copying the files. disabling the antivirus should help the system copy files much faster. but of course you lose the protection of scanning the files as they are transferred to the external drive.

or you may want to boot into safe mode instead and copy the files to the external drive while in safe mode.

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try to temporarily disable the Windows 7 firewall OR set your LAN connection settings to the "Public" location (and not Home). Turning off the firewall should lessen the networking "restrictions" of Windows 7.

but try first with just setting the LAN connection to the Public location instead of the Home location.

goodluck