Windows XP Home Networking

Greetings!

I apologize if this is a simple question, but I am a Linux Guy and only have a good working knowledge of windows up to WinME...

I am trying to network a small office set-up with multiple users - the network is functioning properly, but I would like to set two particular computers on the network to be able to share files *only* with each other.....is this impossible with WinXP Home?

I have found how to set user permissions on the shared folders / files but from what I can understand - it only sets permissions for users local to that particular machine. I know that previous versions of Windows have allowed to establish passwords for sharing of files and folders...

Any help at all would be extremely appreciated..

Edwin J. Nagle

 

This is an excellent question. I to would be interested in knowing this information. I would like to share my internet access with a friend accoss the street, but I don't want him to have access to my computers files that I am now sharing on my wireless network.

I would think this may be a password security issue. Maybe someone will rescue us.

 

jnagle - welcome to you.
bobemartin - you had only to ask.

Very possible to do what you want with XP. Easier with XP-Pro but can be done with XP-home. Just a little difference in how you approach it since Microsoft 'crippled' XP-home in terms of networking and security. And for jnagle, the 'feel' of the security things will be more familiar to you as a Linux guy than the 9X/ME stuff was since XP is like Unix in that it was built to be a networking OS while 9X/ME had it sorta added on.

Note: I'll put in the XP-home directions the best I can but I have never used, or even seen, XP-home so I may goof a detail or two. If something isn't like I say, tell me. The basics should be correct.

- I strongly suggest you run NTFS for the security things to work properly. FAT32 simply lacks many of the options to fine tune your security. If you are using FAT32 now, you can do a convert from a cmd prompt to change over to NTFS.

- Most XP-home security setup will need to be done from safe mode and logged on as administrator. The options don't even show in normal mode.

- All users who will be connecting to the XP system(s) for file or printer sharing will have to be logging on with a username and a non-blank password regardless of what OS they run.

• Go into Local Users & Groups, Users and disable the Guest account. It is enabled by default when XP-home is installed (disabled by default in XP-PRO).
• Your log on account should already be there. If you log on using the administrator account, add another one for daily use for yourself and make sure it requres a password.
• Add any user accounts you want to have any access to your PC - either folders/files or printers. They must be identical to the logon on the other PC and the password is case sensitive.
• Move from the Users folder to the Groups folder. Add your new account to the administrator group if you want it to have unrestricted access to the PC or to the super users group (may not exist on XP-Home) if you want to be able to do most things but have a few safeguards.
• Add any other user accounts that will need access to the users group. You can give them extra access to specific files/folders or printers later if they need it.
• Exit this section since you are done with user account setup for now.

• Open Windows Explorer.
• Right-click on C:\ and click on Properties~security tab.
• Add your new account and give it the permissions you want it to have. Do the same for all other partitions/drives. The administrator account should already be there with full access but if not, add it as well. Set to push the changes down to all subfolders.
• Remove the Everyone group and set to push this down to all subfolders. Remove it rather than use the Deny options. Otherwise you may find yourself with no access to your own PC. Again, do for all drives/partitions.
• Locate the drives/folders/files you want others to use and set permissions on them to include the other user accounts. Give them the access you want them to have. Yours should already be there.
• Share the drives/folders/files/printers. If you want the shares to display when someone does a net view of the PC or similar, just use a share name that suits you. Same or different from the real folder name. If you want the shares hidden (but available to any who know the share name) end the name with a $ which hides it from network PCs. Leave the share permissions set to everything for everybody. This avoids some possible problems and since the others have no permissions for the folder, they can connect to it but not see or work with the contents.

Note that the root of each of your drives is shared for administrative purposes and you can't change that. They are hidden shares (C$, D$, etc.) but anyone who knows they are there can connect. The instructions above are designed to prevent them from doing anything once they connect. They will get a 'permission denied' no matter what they try to do including list files or anything else.

However, it does mean that if you are logged on to PC-A and need to do something to PC-B, you can connect to the admin share on PC-A and with your permissions, you can deal with files/folders/printers. Limited ability to mess with the share permissions though.