XP SP3 Never Responds to Migration Assistant Authentication Request

Question

I've been using Macs for years and years and PCs for years and years before that. My parents have hung onto their XP machines as long as they (and I) could stand and it's now time to move them over to Mac. I remember the very painful days I spent migrating my Windows Outlook email and address book over to the Mac and swore I'd never go through that again. So when I heard Lion would have a Windows Migration Assistant that works with Outlook, I was nearly ecstatic. That was some days ago now and I now wish I'd just done the migration the old painful way because I'd be done by now.
I have two systems running Lion, one brand new Mini that came pre-installed with Lion and one brand new 17" MBP that came loaded with Snow Leopard but was immediately upgraded to Lion using the App store. I also have two Dell desktops running XP Pro SP3 that's fully up to date with Windows Update. I have exactly the same experience with Migration Assistant on both pairs of machines:
I download and installed Migration Assistant for Windows
I connect the Mac and the PC via an Ethernet cable
Both computers acknowledge that there's ethernet present.
The Mac can actually browse the XP machine's hard drive.
I run Migration Assistant on the Mac and take it up to the point that it's looking on the network for a computer to connect to.
I run Migration Assistant on the XP machine
The Mac now sees the XP machine in Migration Assistant
I select the XP machine and continue to the authentication step
The Mac spits out an authentication code
The XP machine appears to be waiting to hear from the Mac
Everybody waits for everyone else
Two hours go by
Nothing ever happens.
So, I tried a few things:
I rebooted everybody and that changed nothing.
I tried it over and over for two days and that changed nothing.
I tried reversing the order of steps 3 & 4 above, no difference in the outcome.
I tried connecting the two computers via USB, but they never saw each other.
I called Apple tech support. The first guy reviewed the steps with me and suggested very nicely that I call Microsoft (LOL). I asked him to escalate the case and he sent me to someone else who did actually seem to know what he was talking about. That person said I should give the XP machine up to 20 minutes to notice the authentication request from the Mac. That's why step 10 is in there above.
So if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

Answer 1

Same issue here.
I want to migrate from a Windows XP SP3 too, but just to see if it depends on the operating system, I also tryed to migrate from another laptop with Windows 7 Pro and it fails in the same way.
Under a temp directory in Windows there's a SystemMigration.log with some details that may be useful to the support service. When the migration assistant starts on Windows it logs several activities related to user data scanning:
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.33.39: The working directory is C:\Programmi\File comuni\Apple\Windows Migration Assistant
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.33.39: The current OS version is Microsoft Windows NT 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.33.39: The current MA version is 1.0.0.32
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.33.42: Bonjour version is 1180500
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.33.42: SlingShot: Pipe name is: honPC_xqjjzcpxst
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.33.42: SMBonjour: Published honPC_xqjjzcpxst on 10505
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.33.43: Adding users...
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.33.43: Adding administrator Administrator ()
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.33.43: Adding administrator USER (C:\Documents and Settings\USER)
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.33.43: Attempting fallback on ManagementObject exception: Non trovato
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.33.43: WMI path: \\DANIELA\root\cimv2:Win32_SystemAccount.Domain="DANIELA",Name="INTERACTIVE"
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.33.43: reg_reply: honPC_xqjjzcpxst: _smsling._tcp. on local. [0] 0000
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.33.48: Failed to find SID for INTERACTIVE
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.33.48: Attempting fallback on ManagementObject exception: Non trovato
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.33.48: WMI path: \\DANIELA\root\cimv2:Win32_SystemAccount.Domain="DANIELA",Name="Authenticated Users"
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.33.48: Failed to find SID for Authenticated Users
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.33.48: Populating USER's FolderGrouping ( C:\Documents and Settings\USER\(album).Francesco.Renga-Orchestra.E.Voce.(by.@G@-AsTrA).2009 )
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.33.48: Populating USER's FolderGrouping ( C:\Documents and Settings\USER\Graphisoft )
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.33.48: Populating USER's FolderGrouping ( C:\Documents and Settings\USER\Mango )
Error messages come out when handshaking with Mac begin:
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.36.18: *** CONTROL: Exception in ClientAuthorized:
System.IO.IOException: Authentication failed because the remote party has closed the transport stream.
   at System.Net.Security.SslState.InternalEndProcessAuthentication(LazyAsyncResult lazyResult)
   at System.Net.Security.SslState.EndProcessAuthentication(IAsyncResult result)
   at System.Net.Security.SslStream.EndAuthenticateAsServer(IAsyncResult asyncResult)
   at SMSlingShot.ServerSocket.ClientAuthorized(IAsyncResult result)
Last Win32 Error: 997
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.36.18: SlingShot: returning to initial state
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.36.18: SMBonjour: Published honPC_xqjjzcpxst on 10505
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.36.18: reg_reply: honPC_xqjjzcpxst: _smsling._tcp. on local. [0] 0000
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.36.20: *** CONTROL: Exception in ClientAuthorized:
System.IO.IOException: Authentication failed because the remote party has closed the transport stream.
   at System.Net.Security.SslState.InternalEndProcessAuthentication(LazyAsyncResult lazyResult)
   at System.Net.Security.SslState.EndProcessAuthentication(IAsyncResult result)
   at System.Net.Security.SslStream.EndAuthenticateAsServer(IAsyncResult asyncResult)
   at SMSlingShot.ServerSocket.ClientAuthorized(IAsyncResult result)
Last Win32 Error: 997
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.36.20: SlingShot: returning to initial state
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.36.20: SMBonjour: Published honPC_xqjjzcpxst on 10505
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.36.20: reg_reply: honPC_xqjjzcpxst: _smsling._tcp. on local. [0] 0000
mercoledì 27 luglio 2011 13.36.22: *** CONTROL: Exception in ClientAuthorized:
The sequence continues over and over until Migration Assistant on the Mac is open trying to authenticate.
Hope someone could help.