Joining a workgroup

A user wants me to connect a "home use" windows ME laptop to a workgroup which consists of one XP Pro machine for the purposes of copying some files.

I cant get it to work. Can anyone help? I have tried the option of asking it to log into a domain, but that doesnt work and I dont want it to join a domain anyway. There is no option to join a workgroup.

Thanks

 

ME and XP Home, #1 and #2, have to be the lamest OS's Microsoft has foisted on the world since DOS 3.0. Ok, now that I've got that out of the way.

You do not have a domain controller. You do not want to join a domain.

Sharing is different among different Window OS platforms, including different between XP Home and XP Pro.

Be aware that sharing means that the host computer is offering a service to the network. If your LAN is connected to the Internet, you need to protect machines that are offering shares. Therefore, you should have an established firewall either on the host or protecting your LAN that blocks access to ports 135-139 and 445 (among others) for anything except the node to which you want to give access. Also be aware that share passwords are passed in the clear, so if you have a wireless network, you need to take adequate steps to ensure that your traffic is not visible to others enjoying the same oxygen that you breath.

You must first establish that you have network connectivity between the two machines. At the very least you should be able to ping each machine from the other.

Share recognition is by netbios name resolution.

In general, you don't share files; you share folders. Don't share out the root of a drive. Don't share system folders. Create a folder under the root that you will use for sharing files and share that. Use the 8.3 naming convention for shared folders and don't put spaces, dashes, or underscores in the name.

Specifically, for XP Home, a folder called "Shared Documents" is already established. This already breaks some of the rules stated, but is set up by default by Microsoft for this purpose. ME should be able to handle it. See if that folder exists and see if you can access it from the other computer through whatever they're calling the LAN browser (My Network Places.)

If the machine sharing files and printers can't be seen in the LAN browser, try establishing an LMHOSTS file on the client node and see if that helps.

Under XP Home either everybody on the network has access to the share or nobody does. If you want to limit access by user, upgrade to XP Pro.

With the XP home machine, at a minimum both machines must belong to the same workgroup. Make the workgroup name something simple like "LANWG" on both machines.

One machine (XP) will host the share and one machine will access the share. On the host, you must add "File and Print Sharing" to the Items used by the connection.

If you can find and use the "Shared Documents" folder, but you can see the host system from the client node in the LAN browser, then establish your own folder that will be shared as per the specs given above.

Right click the the folder icon and choose Properties from the context menu. Click on the Sharing tab. Check the "Share this folder on the network" check box. Give it a share name (the same as the folder name is a good idea) and check the box that says "Allow network user to change my files. Click OK.

Reboot both systems, host first.

If this information didn't work or you have a problem, post back.

 

Oops. You said "home use" but you did say XP Pro. Now that's a horse of a different color.

Essentially, IMO, you should drop the XP Pro way of doing things and adopt the W2K method. Both are different from the XP Home method.

This involves a few steps. Read all. Then act.

One liner: disable simple sharing.

Need more? Read on.

There may be more than one way to do what you want, depending on whether you will use the guest account or not.

Close your open shares and remove them; you are going to re-establish the shares. Don't share the root of a drive. Establish a folder under the root that will be shared. Make as few shares as is possible to accomplish the goal. If you have NTFS for a file system, give the folder the NTFS permissions that will be needed for access. If you have a FAT32 file system, you cannot give permissions at file system level. If you have older Windows OS's that will access the share use the 8.3 naming convention.

Log on as the administrator of the system.

Before you can password protect or disable open shares on Windows XP Pro, you must disable Simple File Sharing.

• Click Start
• click My Computer
• click Tools
• click Folder Options
• click the View tab
• In Advanced Settings
• clear "Use simple file sharing (Recommended)" check box
• Click OK

Windows XP Pro automatically creates a Guest Account, which allows anonymous users access to shared resources on your computer. People who attempt to access shared folders that are explicitly shared will not have to enter a password to gain access to those resources. Microsoft calls this ForceGuest. You don't want this.

• Start
• Settings
• Control Panel
• Administrative Tools
• Local Security Policy
• Security Settings
• Local Policies
• Security Options
• Highlight Network Access: Force Network Logons using Local Accounts to Authenticate as Guest
• Right click, properties
• blacken the "Disabled" radio button
• click OK

While you are in there, check on Network access: Sharing and security model for local accounts In the properties dialog box, change the drop-down list option to Classic "“ local users authenticate themselves...

Making policy changes can be as damaging as making registry changes. If you are not familiar with policies, I would suggest doing no more than is necessary and maintain a log of changes you make.

I reboot when I make such changes. This comes of being too lazy to look up whether or not I need to do that. If I had to do it a lot, I'd find out.

All my 'puters are in a domain. My guest account is disabled. If the guest account on your machine hasn't been touched, at least give it a very strong password.

• Right-click on "My Computer "
• click on "Manage "
• Click on "Local Users and Groups "
• click on "Users "
• Right-click the Guest account
• select "Properties "

If the account is not disabled, the only boxes that should be checked are "Password never expires" and "User cannot change password. "
Right-click on the Guest Account again, and choose "Set Password." Change it to something impossible to guess. Disable the account if you have no need for it.

Share level passwords are passed in the clear. If you have a wireless network, make sure it is adequately protected.

Set up an user account on the host machine that has the same username and password as for the user on the client machine that will be accessing the share.

Make your Windows 95/98/ME machine log in a user with the same username and password as that established on the host.

Re-establish the share(s) and give the user permissions to the share on the host.

Never use the wizard to set up a share. Never turn simple sharing back on -- if you do the results will be unpredictable.

If you are running a firewall on these systems, you can further restrict access to the machines by internal IP address.

 

Wow - Thanks a million for all that info. The user will bring his laptop in tomorrow and I will attempt to connect again.

The folders he needs to copy are already shared with everyone permissions. I suspect that all I have to do is to enable the Guest account, but I will let you know how I get on.


Many Thanks

 

Grunty - leave that dang Guest account disabled like it belongs. Yuck.

In other words, the PCs must all be set so the user logs in with a username and a non-blank password. MUST.

The XP PC must have each of those username/passwords added to it's local users list. MUST. And the password part is case sensitive.

You could do the job with the Guest account although the other PCs would still have to be using a logon with username and non-blank password. Just wouldn't have to have the accounts on the XP PC since the function of the Guest account is to allow access to any logged on user.

You could have all the PCs using the exact same username/password to logon that the XP PC used.

But neither of these options would allow for fine-tuning access later on and neither is as secure as giving each user a username/password.

 

Many Thanks for your help in this matter.

I was sort of half way there with user names and passwords.

I had already created similar accounts on both machines but then worked my way through all the information you have given me.

Although I could see both machines in the same workgroup in Windows Explorer, I could not gain access to the share on the XP machine.


What I did in the end was to grant access permissions for the Share and NTFS of everyone full control. Once the files were transferred I removed these permissions. It seemed to be the lack of NTFS permissions that was causing the trouble. I had forgotten to check them before

As this only needs doing once every 2 months or so, I dont mind opening up the XP machine for a few minutes just to access the files.

Thanks again, especially to Bitbyter who must have spent more time typing than I did on the problem itself.

I have decided however, that I do not like Windows ME at all. Am I alone in this?

 

Now that it is chiseled in the internet, the instructions are here for all time.

If you set your NTFS permissions for the user, it should work. The usual recommendation is to set the share for everyone and the NTFS permissions for the user. For non-NTFS, the usual recommendation is to set the share by the user. Setting both for the user and eliminating any permissions for Everyone is a good idea.

...or you can open it up as needed which isn't a bad idea if it is as infrequent as you say.

The key piece of security advice is to employ a firewall between your system and the internet and use it to block access to ports 135-139 and 445 except for the user/machine to which you want to give access.

I had two systems with ME on them. After some period of time, I upgraded them both to Windows 98 Second Edition.