Stubborn shared drive won't allow connections...

I have a small peer-to-peer home network that I've been using for
several years to share files between machines via shared folders and
drives. Until recently things worked fine, but since I reinstalled
Windows XP Pro on one of them after upgrading the motherboard and CPU,
I have been unable to find the magic incantation to make its shared
drives available to other machines on the network. All service packs
and hotfixes have been applied.

The problem isn't that it can't be seen. It has a DHCP assigned
internal address (192.168.0.100) and I can connect to it via VNC to use
it remotely from another laptop on the network. It can connect to
printers and everything else. The only thing I can't do is map via its
UNC address to administrative and named shares.

For example, the name of the machine is "SERVER". When I go to
\\SERVER\C$, it asks for authentication information (which it didn't do
before I reinstalled XP). I then tried naming the share and connecting
via the UNC to the named share. Still no dice. I enabled all sharing
permissions I could find in the Sharing tab. Didn't work. Figuring
that it was an overall permissions problem, I decided to tackle the
problem by opening it wide to group Everyone and every other group and
user on the machine, then lock it down group by group and user by user
until I had a security profile I was comfortable with. But even giving
Full Control to everyone and every group did not fix the problem.

It still gives me an authentication dialog. The administrative user
doesn't currently have a password, but when I try to log in as that
user (even when a password is assigned) it claims to know nothing about
the user and rejects the login attempt.

I'm really stumped here. I've read every FAQ on Microsoft's site
having to do with sharing and peer-to-peer networking and have browsed
the newsgroups for months and still can't find anything that works.
Can someone help me?

Thanks.



crwng@comcast.net

Hi!

When accesing share on remote computer in peer-to-peer networks you always
need to autheticate. Windows XP will not allow network access for user
accounts with blank password as a result of this security setting:

Local Computer Policy
Computer Configuration
Windows Settings
Security Settings
Local Policies
Security Options
Accounts: Limit local account use of blank passwords to console
logon only

Why don't you try to access the share with net use command from command
prompt and then you can tell us what is the error number, that you get?

Toni



<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) ups.com...
>I have a small peer-to-peer home network that I've been using for
> several years to share files between machines via shared folders and
> drives. Until recently things worked fine, but since I reinstalled
> Windows XP Pro on one of them after upgrading the motherboard and CPU,
> I have been unable to find the magic incantation to make its shared
> drives available to other machines on the network. All service packs
> and hotfixes have been applied.
>
> The problem isn't that it can't be seen. It has a DHCP assigned
> internal address (192.168.0.100) and I can connect to it via VNC to use
> it remotely from another laptop on the network. It can connect to
> printers and everything else. The only thing I can't do is map via its
> UNC address to administrative and named shares.
>
> For example, the name of the machine is "SERVER". When I go to
> \\SERVER\C$, it asks for authentication information (which it didn't do
> before I reinstalled XP). I then tried naming the share and connecting
> via the UNC to the named share. Still no dice. I enabled all sharing
> permissions I could find in the Sharing tab. Didn't work. Figuring
> that it was an overall permissions problem, I decided to tackle the
> problem by opening it wide to group Everyone and every other group and
> user on the machine, then lock it down group by group and user by user
> until I had a security profile I was comfortable with. But even giving
> Full Control to everyone and every group did not fix the problem.
>
> It still gives me an authentication dialog. The administrative user
> doesn't currently have a password, but when I try to log in as that
> user (even when a password is assigned) it claims to know nothing about
> the user and rejects the login attempt.
>
> I'm really stumped here. I've read every FAQ on Microsoft's site
> having to do with sharing and peer-to-peer networking and have browsed
> the newsgroups for months and still can't find anything that works.
> Can someone help me?
>
> Thanks.
>

Could it have been true that your earlier installation was configured
for "Simple File Sharing"? Check Folder Options down at the bottom of
the list.

Otherwise, you'll have to create an account for each USER running on
the other PCs and give these accounts the Security Permissions
necessary to do the sharing. Don't overlook Share Permissions which
I'd suggest you should set up to give Full-Control to EVERYONE. XP
Pro won't just allow an object to be shared because you make it
sharable. You have to tell it WHICH user objects have access.

To simplify the problem, create a local group and put all those
external users in it. Then, give that group all the Security and
Share permissions needed to offer the kind of access you want.

Hope this helps,
Bilbo

On 14 Oct 2006 09:47:42 -0700, (E-Mail Removed) wrote:

>I have a small peer-to-peer home network that I've been using for
>several years to share files between machines via shared folders and
>drives. Until recently things worked fine, but since I reinstalled
>Windows XP Pro on one of them after upgrading the motherboard and CPU,
>I have been unable to find the magic incantation to make its shared
>drives available to other machines on the network. All service packs
>and hotfixes have been applied.
>
>The problem isn't that it can't be seen. It has a DHCP assigned
>internal address (192.168.0.100) and I can connect to it via VNC to use
>it remotely from another laptop on the network. It can connect to
>printers and everything else. The only thing I can't do is map via its
>UNC address to administrative and named shares.
>
>For example, the name of the machine is "SERVER". When I go to
>\\SERVER\C$, it asks for authentication information (which it didn't do
>before I reinstalled XP). I then tried naming the share and connecting
>via the UNC to the named share. Still no dice. I enabled all sharing
>permissions I could find in the Sharing tab. Didn't work. Figuring
>that it was an overall permissions problem, I decided to tackle the
>problem by opening it wide to group Everyone and every other group and
>user on the machine, then lock it down group by group and user by user
>until I had a security profile I was comfortable with. But even giving
>Full Control to everyone and every group did not fix the problem.
>
>It still gives me an authentication dialog. The administrative user
>doesn't currently have a password, but when I try to log in as that
>user (even when a password is assigned) it claims to know nothing about
>the user and rejects the login attempt.
>
>I'm really stumped here. I've read every FAQ on Microsoft's site
>having to do with sharing and peer-to-peer networking and have browsed
>the newsgroups for months and still can't find anything that works.
>Can someone help me?
>
>Thanks.

--
BilBo

Sorry for the delay. I totally overlooked this fact (blank password on
server box) and once I set the password, all worked fine. In case
anyone wonders why in the name of all that's sane I didn't set a
password, I was troubleshooting another issue with remote desktop
issues and temporarily left it unset. The fact that I did that didn't
pop into my head until T. Uranjek's answer. Thanks T!

T. Uranjek wrote:
> Hi!
>
> When accesing share on remote computer in peer-to-peer networks you always
> need to autheticate. Windows XP will not allow network access for user
> accounts with blank password as a result of this security setting:
>
> Local Computer Policy
> Computer Configuration
> Windows Settings
> Security Settings
> Local Policies
> Security Options
> Accounts: Limit local account use of blank passwords to console
> logon only
>
> Why don't you try to access the share with net use command from command
> prompt and then you can tell us what is the error number, that you get?
>
> Toni
>
>
>
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed) ups.com...
> >I have a small peer-to-peer home network that I've been using for
> > several years to share files between machines via shared folders and
> > drives. Until recently things worked fine, but since I reinstalled
> > Windows XP Pro on one of them after upgrading the motherboard and CPU,
> > I have been unable to find the magic incantation to make its shared
> > drives available to other machines on the network. All service packs
> > and hotfixes have been applied.
> >
> > The problem isn't that it can't be seen. It has a DHCP assigned
> > internal address (192.168.0.100) and I can connect to it via VNC to use
> > it remotely from another laptop on the network. It can connect to
> > printers and everything else. The only thing I can't do is map via its
> > UNC address to administrative and named shares.
> >
> > For example, the name of the machine is "SERVER". When I go to
> > \\SERVER\C$, it asks for authentication information (which it didn't do
> > before I reinstalled XP). I then tried naming the share and connecting
> > via the UNC to the named share. Still no dice. I enabled all sharing
> > permissions I could find in the Sharing tab. Didn't work. Figuring
> > that it was an overall permissions problem, I decided to tackle the
> > problem by opening it wide to group Everyone and every other group and
> > user on the machine, then lock it down group by group and user by user
> > until I had a security profile I was comfortable with. But even giving
> > Full Control to everyone and every group did not fix the problem.
> >
> > It still gives me an authentication dialog. The administrative user
> > doesn't currently have a password, but when I try to log in as that
> > user (even when a password is assigned) it claims to know nothing about
> > the user and rejects the login attempt.
> >
> > I'm really stumped here. I've read every FAQ on Microsoft's site
> > having to do with sharing and peer-to-peer networking and have browsed
> > the newsgroups for months and still can't find anything that works.
> > Can someone help me?
> >
> > Thanks.
> >