The final problem with my home network

[digby]

Ok, now that I've got my comp built, I'm trying to network my comp with my roommate's. I'm running 2k SP4. He's running XP home SP1. I'm so close that I can taste it, but I can't log on to his computer.

He is able to log on and acess my fileshares. We can play games over the network, our respective iTunes can share files. I setup our firewalls so that 192.168.0.100-199 (our default ip range) are untouched by zone alarm. Everything is working except for me logging on to his computer. It shows up just fine, but I can't use any account he has on his to log in. Suggestions?

[Redjake]

what do you mean by "log on to any account that he has?" You mean access any folders or files he has shared across the network?

Not to be a smartass but the simple solution is to format your computer and put Windows XP on it All networking from then on is a joke. I have NEVER had a problem with networking since I jumped to XP. In fact, most of the networks are damn-near plug 'n play once you get XP on all the systems.

[DEI37]

W2K is 99% as easy, though. I didn't have any problems with it at all. Anyways, in regards to the problems...if he has the computer set up to not automatically log in, but rather has to sign in with a user name and password, that COULD be part of the problem. I'm a little confused as well on if you can still access his shared folders/files? Can you?

[digby]

1. The reason we are using XP/2k is because he has a legitimate copy of XP, and I have a legitimate copy of 2k. No more, no less.

2. On the XP computer: I can open our workgroup and see both of our computers. If I double click on the 2k box there, I can put in a username and password and access files that have been marked for sharing on the 2k box.

On the 2k computer: I can open the aforementioned workgroup and see both computers. If I double click on the xp box, I get a prompt for username and password. No combination lets me log in.

I created 2 accounts on both computers: mine and his (same names and passwords). I haven't figured out how to have them auto login. At work (2 win 2k boxes) it was easy. Created the same account structure and everything worked fine. This is my first experience with XP, though. Thanks for your help.

[DEI37]

I'm surprised that you can't use the administrator account to log in. Even if it has no password, it *should* still work. I ran in to this problem even with two XP machines, and I just used the administrator log-in and password, and told it to save the log-in information, and no, it never has issues.

[meembo]

Small and obvious -- are your folders set to share? In Explorer, you can right click and see "Sharing" and check that sharing is enabled

[Tuna911]

on the XP box do the following:

Open Windows Explorer and click Tools>Folder Options. Then click the "View" Tab and scroll down the "Advanced Settings" list and uncheck: "Use simple file sharring" .

Then giver a try...

[rubicon]

Put both computers into the same workgroup. Confirm the Share permissions are at least Everyone (Full Control). Double check the username and passwords are identical.

[Vanquish]

I aint saying that you shouldn't fix it, but if you ever get fet up wit it, just set up a FTP and use that to share files. You know enought that your not going to allow outside access to it, so it shouldn't be a big issue at all.

if it was me I would first do what Tuna911 suggested and if it still didn't work, I would look at the local security settings of each comp (ctrl panel -> administrative tools -> Local Security Settings)
and look for anything that could cause your problem. I forget the exact layout for WinXP home, I know that it is very limited network wise from XP PRO but filesharing is a sure thing, I dont know why it just dont work from the getgo.

oh and if all else fails, try and enable the Guest account on your XP home box (i dont suggest you leave it enabled tho, just a troubleshooting tool)

[shakran]

one of your problems is XP. XP home SUCKS for networking. XP pro is much better.

[kapoho]

I've run into this exact same problem with XP home and Win2k. I had to run the the network wizard on the XP home machine then I could immediately access the XP machine from the Win2k machine. Why? XP Home isn't the best OS in networked environments.

If I remember properly (I don't have a copy of XP home), right click on my computer, select properties, then select the Network Identification tab. You should see a Network Wizard button somewhere in there. Follow the wizard to connect it to the workgroup (don't select domain if you are in a workgroup environment).

[digby]

I actually tried running that wizard yesterday... it crashed XP...

I'm going to try playing around with it again tonight, I think. I'll either figure something out, or I'll decide that it's not worth worrying about.