Vista / XP file sharing 'Access denied'

shergar3 · 8th April 2007

I had three PCs running XP and file sharing between all three was good.
Have upgraded one PC to Vista Home Premium.
Whatever I do I cannot access the Vista PC from the XP PCs (have tried Guest accounts, identical accounts on all PCs, permissions of every description, uninstalled firewalls etc.).
The Vista PC is listed on the XP PCs Network places, I can ping it.
The Vista PC can access all shared files on the XP PCs.
Help!

XAMP · 9th April 2007

download this on every computer running XP and see if you can access them.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/i...splayLang%3den

shergar3 · 10th April 2007

Thanks for your reply.
Am already running LLTD on both XP PCs.

uhaligani · 10th April 2007

The only way I have found to do it is by going into the "share" properties and adding "everyone" Itseems that it leaves the folders wide open but it works. I have not tried it, but perhaps you could add a completely new user on all the computers, with any name , Al Budi, for example. It should achieve the same result as my suggestion.

shergar3 · 10th April 2007

Thanks. Sharing is set to Everyone and I have tried new identical accounts on each PC

uhaligani · 10th April 2007

I have been playing around with some other ideas. I just read one on the Ms forum which looks promising, I have tried it with a small folder and it was OK. The folder to be shared MUST be underneath the c:\Users\Public folder, and then Public Folder Sharing option must be turned on through Control Panel. After creating the folder in the correct location, you still have to right click and assign the share properties to it. Windows does not automatically assume it to be shared just because it is in the Public folder.

shergar3 · 10th April 2007

Thanks for this.
I am away from home (with my trusty XP notebook) but will check the above later in the week and report the results.

pfogle · 13th April 2007

The file sharing in vista is completely different than windows XP. You actually need to set the sharing to a private network then you can open your files up to every user on the computer and the network.

shergar3 · 13th April 2007

Thanks Pfogle. Can you explain exactly what you mean by "set the sharing to a private network"?

And thank you Uhaligani. I have checked what you suggested but still no joy. When I click 'Show me all the shared network folders on this computer' or 'Show me all the files and folders I am sharing' I can see all the shared files but still get access denied from the XP PCs.

uhaligani · 13th April 2007

Thats curious. Since discovering the trick myself, Ihave moved all my shared folders into the "Public" folder. Of course, I needed to share out the folders and the files they contained and, as I said, made sure the Public folder was also shared. I am not having any problems now.

pfogle · 13th April 2007

I just cured this issue on my network last night. Open the network and sharing properties in the control panel, where it gives you the details about the network, first drop down box under the big "this user - network name - internet" you'll see a customize link. Click it, then tell it to change the network type to private. This allows your computer to be fully accessed by anyone on the network. Then you must go to the user accounts panel and disable user account control. What happens is Vista looks for that XP user in the user list, if it doesn't find it then it can't find the account control authorization for them.

Another note, you must share each folder on a drive separately for some reason when you try to share the entire drive it just doesn't work.

uhaligani · 13th April 2007

Good stuff pfogle. I have customised my own Vista to the limit. When I went through your process, I found I had all the ticks in the right place. That explains, probably, why I was getting a result which shergar couldn't. Only difference was that it seemed to make no difference on my setup, if the UAC was on or off. I am logged on as the Administrator, pure, and have no user account - maybe that is the reason.

RJ59 · 15th April 2007

Hi all. Just read this thread, and I had the exact same problems. I could get the Public Folder and Printer Sharing to work, but nothing else. I could see other folders I set up to share on another partition, even the root of the drive, but couldn't access them no matter what I tried. Found a knowledge base article on how to set up file sharing in Vista, followed the steps exactly, same result. In frustration I went searching, and found a simple and inexpensive program called Network Magic that solved all my problems. Even allows me to share files with buds over the internet, or access my own while away from home. I'm in no way affiliated with this company, but highly recommend the program, it really works. You all can check it out here: http://www.networkmagic.com/

shergar3 · 16th April 2007

Problem solved!
When I uninstalled Zone Alarm before I upgraded to Vista it didn't uninstall completely and was running invisibly (no icons or warnings) and preventing access.