Re: Sharing a Drive

mcp6453 wrote:
Two computers on the same network need access to each other's drives. One computer is XP Home, the other is XP Pro. Pro can see Home's drives, but when Home tries to see Pro's drives, it is presented with the user name/password box. The objective is to provide access to Home without Home having to enter Pro's login credentials.

I know that setting up an identical user account on Home will allow it to see Pro's drives without the credentials, but that is not what I want to do. Yes, I want to leave the drive on Pro wide open, for reasons not discussed here. In that past, I have accomplished this objective many times, including on my own home network. Somehow, though, I am missing something here.

Drive C on Pro is shared as "C". Simple File Sharing is disabled. The security on C has been changed to Everyone with Full Control. The changes have been propagated to the child folders. However, the login box still appears. Both Windows firewalls are disabled, for now.

Other than creating a user account on Home, how can I give unrestricted access to Pro to other computers on the LAN?

Why don't you want to create a matching user account/password on both boxen? This is the simplest and easiest way to make sure you can share resources without being asked for credentials. I do not understand why people are reluctant to do this; it isn't logical. If your concern is that you don't want to have to click an icon and enter a password using either the Welcome Screen or the classic logon box, just use control userpasswords2 to set each box to logon automatically into the desired user account.

Configure Windows to Automatically Login (MVP Ramesh) - http://windowsxp.mvps.org/Autologon.htm

To share the root of a drive, create a new share called "C:" (or whatever the drive letter is) and allow sharing to everyone.

Otherwise try *enabling* simple file sharing on your XP Pro box, which will mean that you connect as Guest. See below:

If one or more of the computers is XP Pro or Media Center:

1. If you need Pro's ability to set fine-grained permissions, turn off Simple File Sharing (Folder Options>View tab) and create identical user accounts/passwords on all computers.

2. If you don't care about using Pro's advanced features, leave the Simple File Sharing enabled. Simple File Sharing means that Guest (network) is enabled. This means that anyone without a user account on the target system can use its resources. This is a security hole but only you can decide if it matters in your situation.

3. Create shares as desired. XP Home does not permit sharing of users' home directories (My Documents) or Program Files, but you can share folders inside those directories. A better choice is to simply use the Shared Documents folder.


Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User
.

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