XO guest Win7 host network issue

[JohnCz]

The environment:
Host: Windows 7 64-bite ultimate, no domain. VirtualBox ver. 4.3.10 r93012
Guest: Windows XP SP3 32-bit.
The problem:
The only way the guest system can see the host machine is to set network adapter to "bridged adapter".
I can see the host in the list of the computer on the network but I am unable to access any share on the host or any other network computer. I am able to ping guest from host but no the other way around

Trying to use VirtualBox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter, Windows 7 puts it in a public network, hence I am not able to access any network shared resources even if IP is set to the same network. however I can ping the guest. I am not able to ping host from the guest.

It seems like in both cases, network is treated as public. is there any way to change it to private?
I have tried setting *NdisDeviceType to 1 for VirtualBox Host-Only Ethernet Adapter does not show public network but I am not sure if this setting only hides settings or assigns this adapter to my home network.
Why setting network adapter to "bridged" does not change this behavior and network access is limited?

[Perryg]

firewall?

[JohnCz]

Thanks for your response Perryg.
Firewall should have nothing to do with it, since IP is set to the same network. I already tried turning firewall off.
I thing the whole problem is that VBox is treated as if it were a public network.
Using XP host in Win7 VM with the same network settings does not give me any problems. by the same I mean sharing physical NIC.

[Perryg]

the whole public/private windows crap is the firewall. Turning it off will not fix it. You would need to add an exception.

If you do not need the host-only you can disable it and the pub/pri will probably fix itself if you don't want to fix the firewall issue/s.

[JohnCz]

I do not need host only configuration. I used bridged adapter with the same results.
What make you say that it is a firewall problem? I have already mentioned, when running the same network configuration (shared physical NIC) as Win7 VM, I had no problem accessing network resources from the guest.
In this case bridged adapter is set to get IP and DNS server address automatically.
In VB obtained address has IP within then private network range and the same mask but still not able to access the network.

[noteirak]

You need to see from an easier point of view : if ping (blocked by Windows by default) works in one direction, but not the other, that's definitly an TCP/IP issue (firewall or routing).
If be putting into Bridged, you can ping both ways, and in the other modes you can't, then it's definitly a firewall issue.
So far, I only see a OS missconfiguration, not a Virtualbox one.

Before going further, please provide the commands you used to validate your networking and their full outputs, like ping, netsh, ipconfig, etc...
Without facts, no one can help you.

[JohnCz]

Thank you all for help.
I FORGOT NORTON 360 that block guest from communicating with the host. After disabling smart firewall all works as expected.
I wonder however why win7 virtual machines were accessing the host without a problem. Possibly vpc.exe is excluded by Norton by default. I will have to check this and add virtual box to exclusions.

Thanks again for your time.
John

[JohnCz]

Checked and Virtual box is added to allow access, VPC.exe was not.
I am at the loss since VPC guest was accessing host and VB guest cannot.
Does anybody know how to change Norton firewall settings?

[Perryg]

That would be a question for the norton folks.

[JohnCz]

Well, it never hurts to ask.
For now I just added a traffic rule to accept all traffic from internal network.