Mysterious password

Hi,

I have a small home networking setup that use a number of Windows XP Pro machines which are configured NOT to use simply file sharing. Recently I added a Windows 98 SE machine to the network in order to update it and install applications using the network.

The XP machines could see the 98 machine and access its shared resources. The 98 machine could see the XP machine but when I attempted to access its shared resources I was prompted for a password. I typed in the login password of the target machine but this did not work. I tried all other passwords known to man but no joy.

What password is the 98 machine wanting me to type?

Then I changed the file sharing on the XP machine to use simply file sharing which then worked fine. Both machines could access the others shared resources.

What is the difference between simple file sharing and non simple file sharing? Should I be able to get the 98 machine to access the shares on an XP machine using non simple file sharing (IE what password should I use)?

The network uses an ADSL switch/router that allocates IP addresses using DHCP and provides internet connection to all machines. The Windows 98 machine was always able to connect to the internet irrespective of file sharing type (presumably meaning that the TCP/IP and DHCP side of things are working correctly.

Best Regards Farmer Jo

 

I keep the Simple File Sharing turned off too. I don't like the lack of options & security when it is on. However, in that case the XP systems want some way to know 'who' the 9X system is so they can figure out how much access to give it.

Your options at this point if you want to stay with normal XP-pro file sharing:

- use the same username and non-blank password to log on to all the PCs you have (least secure and should probably be see as the last choice)

- enable the guest account on all the XP machines and log on to 9X with a username and non-blank password (fine if this will allow the 9X system enough access but Guest offers limited rights by design)

- log on to 9X with username and non-blank password and place that user account on each XP system.

 

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

Since the last post I have reverted by Windows XP machines as they were (all using non-simply file sharing), however, now I do not have the same access to shared resources as I did before using simply file sharing. From one machine I can view all the shares of the other but can only access one of them. When I attempt to access the others I get the error :-

"\\<machine>\Applications is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the system adm.......

Access is denied "

I suspect that I have managed to alter a setting somewhere that has cause all but one share to be accessible. Any ideas how to fix this problem or maybe what steps I could take to reconfigure the network and share settings?

Regards Farmer Jo

 

Just to make sure I'm clear, is simple file sharing on the XP machines turned on (using it) or turned off (not using it)?

 

Hi,

Simply file sharing is turned off. I have found out what the problem was. When I checked the Security tab for the shared directories I noticed that in the Group or user names: section "Everyone" was missing on all shares except for one (which was visible across the network).

After I added "Everyone" the problem was resolved, but now I realise I need to learn a bit more about permissions and security because I don't really understand what this all means yet.

Any recommendations to a good tutorial on this subject would be appreciated, then I can ask some good questions later.

Regards Farmer Jo

 

I'll look around and post back with a suggestion or two for places to go for general information.

Meanwhile, if you need more specific security than you have now with 'everyone' able to get to all shares, you can do some group building of your own. After that, you can delete the 'everyone' group from all the shares and things will work as you want. his is more complicated than you will probably need but it should give you a good idea of how the security thing works.

For instance, if you have shares 1, 2, users A, B, C, D and super-admin user E and you want A & B to have user access to all shares, C & D to have user access to share 1 but read-only to share 2, and E to have admin rights to them all you can create your own groups on each of the PCs.

Group X - and put A, B into the group
Group Y - and put C, D into the group
Group Z - and put E into the group

Put group Z into each share with full rights
Put group X into each share with user rights
Put group Y into share 1 with user rights and into share 2 with read-only
Remove Everyone from all the shares. Note, delete the group rather than using the Deny or you may get results you don't want.

If you have changes in what you want users to be able to to, just change their group membership.

 

Hi,

This is what I would like to do. I have a home network which is basically used by two people, but each person has two or three machines which includes PC's and laptops. I need to be able to control access between the two people involved in terms of the various shares on the various machines. To complicate things further some machines are Win98SE and others are WinXP Pro.

All machines are connected using CAT5 and are eventually connected to a DSL504 router/switch which is the gateway to the internet. It also provides DCHP IP address allocation for all the PC's, laptops and a single HP 4MV printer.

Initially I though that the isolation could be solved by simply placing the various computers into two separate groups. For example :-

GROUP1
Win98 PC #1
Win98 PC #2
WinXP Pro #1

GROUP2
WinXP Pro PC #1
WinXP Pro Laptop #1
WinXP Pro Laptop #2

However, this did not isolate the shares between the two WinXP Pro machines in each of the groups.

The first question is this, is there any point in using different workgroups other than a visual separation of user groups?

So now I would like the network to operate as follows.

1) All PC's in GROUP1 should be able to access any share of any other PC in the same group but not have access to shares in GROUP2.

2) All PC's in GROUP2 should be able to access any share of any other PC in the same group but not have access to shares in GROUP1.

3) One share needs to exist in GROUP1 that has read only access in GROUP2 which will be used for safe file transfering between the two groups.

Can this be done?

If so can it be done simply by using passwords to control access. For example if all six machines were in the same group and each machine had a different login password, then in order for one machine to access a share on another machine they would need to use the password of the target machine.

Perhaps a better method is to create various accounts on each machine that are used to specify what other users are allowed access via the network to its shares. This I'm not sure on how to do yet!

Regards FarmerJo