Unable to access Win2k3 Server file shares without mapping network drive

Hi all. I recently joined a small startup company that is running Windows Small Business Server 2003. I run SBS 2003 on my home network, but I'm certainly no expert. I didn't do the installation here at work so I don't know how the network ended up in this state, but here's what I'm seeing:

The server machine is running SBS 2003 and is running as a domain controller. The client machines are all Windows XP Professional (SP2) and are members of the domain.

The server has various shared folders available on the network. I log on to the domain (not the local computer) when I log onto the client machine.

If I try to connect to a share like:

\\server\share

I get prompted with a dialog box asking for my credentials. Entering domain\username and my password does not work. If I instead use "Map Network drive" I run into the same problem where my credentials don't allow me to access the share. If I then click the "Connect using different user name" option in the "Map Network Drive" dialog box and enter the EXACT same credentials (domain\username plus password) then it works fine and I'm able to access the share.

If I connect to the company network from home via VPN I do not see this same behavior and I'm able to access the file shares without entering any additional credentials or needing to map the share as a network drive.

All the client machines exhibit this same behavior.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Gabe

 

It sounds like file sharing permisions to me. Have you looked at the permissions for sharing. These will work differently that accessing the box locally.

I assume each user is part of a group. Even though the folder is shared, does the group have access to the share ?

- Don

 

This looks to me like the SIDs have got corrupted or the ones on the client PC don't match those on the server. This could happen if the server OS has been reinstalled, and someone has set it up exactly the same way as the previous configuration, but has not realised that the SIDs will have changed.

The only way I know of fixing this is to run through the "Network Identification Wizard" (Computer/system Properties) again on each client PC and effectively rejoin each one to the domain.

The worst part of this, is that the system will generate a new user profile and you'll therefore lose connection to the old profile (Favorites, My documents etc all renewed). So you'll need to run the "Files and setting transfer wizard" first to copy the user profile, before you rejoin the domain. You'll then be able to copy back the profile into the new one created by the domain renewal.

This is a lot of work (about an hour on each PC typically!), so hopefully someone can suggest a better solution. If not, try this procedure on one PC first to make sure it corrects the problem.