Sharing devices

I am new to 2000, and it offers a lot more flexibility than I can use. I have shared out my printer, and can access it from my wife's computer when logged in as Administrator. But logged in as an ordinary user, cannot see it. I don't know whther it matters if she is Administrator, but should this be done another way?

Conversely, her c: drive is shared, and I have to log in as Administrator to see it. Not much of a problem, because the need to transfer a file is not that frequent. But does this share make data vulnerable? We have only whatever firewall comes built in with Linksys router.

Thanks
Mike

 

In regards to your first question, accessing the shared printer. Go to the properties of the printer by Right clicking and click properties. Then click the security tab and make sure that the other user account your talking about has permission to it. Also I am assuming this other pc that is accessing it is W2K as well.

Now in regards to your other question. First I would not share out your whole C drive. If you changed its permissions you should change them back so the Root of C is only shared for administrative purposes. I would create a folder and share that folder and use it for file swapping. Your behind a firewall so its probably alright, but as good admin practice don't share out the root.

You mention your using a linksys router. There firewall is secure as long as you don't have any forwarding in the router setup. So go to your router (I'm assuming its the broadband router that everyone has, including myself) and check the settings to make sure no forwarding is on, by default nothing is forwarded. Also check www.linksys.com to make sure you have the latest Firmware installed.

Hopefully that helps, post back if you have any other questions or if you need any clarification.

--Jim

 

Thanks for the reply. Yes, both your assumptions are correct - the other computer is W2K and the router is Linksys broadband - BEFSR41.

OK - I follow fine the advice to create and share only a folder on the drive. Makes me feel a lot better. And I'll follow up on the router settings.

I'm still a bit stymied regarding printer permissions for the other user. When I click the security tab, I see a plethora of choices, but other than a lot of generic users (administrators, power users, etc), the only choices I have are in folder named for this computer. I can't figure out how to browse the local network to find that other user, or to type literally the name.

Your assistance much appreciated.

Mike

 

When you go to the security tab on the printer, if you don't see the user account that you want to give permission to then click the add button on the right and you should see a list of users accounts. Since your not in a domain environment you will want to have a account created on your machine that is the same as your wifes machine so when she accessing the printer it won't prompt for a username/password, as long as password is the same on both machines.

When you create her a account on your pc for printer use and don't want her to be able to use that account to log on, just use it to access the printer, then go to Local Security policy in Admin tools and put her user name as "Deny Logon Locally ". Then her user id will only work for the printer, not logging on to machine.