Help with network shares

This may be a simple question but it has stumped me.
I have 3 vista pcs on my network. I have shared multiple folders on the network. When I try to access the shares from another pc it prompts me for a username and password. I am good with entering the username and password for that machine but it always fails.
After I enter the username and password for that machine, it pops up with the user for the machine followed by the username that I entered.
ie...
sharedpcusername\username-I-entered and a prompt for the password.
What is the syntax to access the shares on these vista machines?

 

The problem with a Windows peer to peer system is that each PC holds its own database of users. Each user database is completely separate from the next. So "Joe Bloggs" on PC1 is a completely different "Joe Bloggs" to the one on PC2. They may share the same name and password, but as they are held in different databases, they are different data objects.

So when you connect to PC1 from PC2 as Joe Bloggs, you need to tell PC1 that you are connecting as the Joe Bloggs in its database, rather than the Joe Bloggs on PC2's database.

To do this you have to specify the PC name too. So assumung PC1 is called "PC1" and Joe's username is jbloggs, you can enter PC1/jbloggs as the user name. I think jbloggs@pc1 would also work.

This is the main reason why client/server systems are so much easier to manage than peer to peer. With client/server systems there is a single user database held of the server and all the client PC's share that database. On a client/server network a single Joe Bloggs entity can have rights across all client PCs.

 

Thanks but..

Reggie

Thanks for your response and I agree with everything you stated.
Except if I use the syntax pc1/joesname, a popup warns me that it should be
domain name\username. I am just wondering with vista if you can use this form..ie... pc1/joesname?
None of the machines are setup as domains members and all on the same workgroup.

 

Ah! That's my mistake. I'm forever forgetting whether its a forward slash or a back slash. At the PC, I can try one and then if I get a error or warning, I know it is the other.

Forgive me: pc1/joesname is the correct form.