Access shares on XP box from Vista

[Glasgow]

The setup I have involves 4 networked machines

1. SRV1: Domain server running Windows 2000 Server
2. XP1 : box running XP professional
3. XP2 : another box running XP professional
4. VISTA1 : a box running Vista Home Premium.

The main problem is that I cannot access the XP2 box's files and printers from VISTA1. I can access those on XP1 & SRV1. I can ping XP2 from VISTA1 and I can even run remote desktop from VISTA1 into XP2. I do believe that access to files and printers on XP2 from VISTA1 was working OK at some point in the last week or so. But no more. I just get the message:

\\xp2 is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource... There are currently no logon servers available to service the login request.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

 

[picohat]

Maybe you did not enable file sharing in XP correctly, check whether these simple file sharing and share file with user/group permission can help you. Also ensure no firewall blocking (Windows firewall, antivirus firewall, etc). Hope it helps..

 

[Glasgow]

Thanks for the input. However I appear to have now got it working without, I confess, being fully aware of how I did so.

What I believe may have happened is that a link was previously established successfully using a domain login. Some of the subsequent attempts were failing because, at points, the domain server had been powered down and so were not available to authenticate.

What I did eventually find was that the best means of attempting to establish a connection was using 'Map Network Drive' (rather than, for example 'Add Printer' or '\\XP2' from 'Run' command) because it offers the option to connect with a different username while the others persist in trying to connect either with the local login or with whatever login was previously successful.

Eventually I achieved the most reliable shares by using a login that was a local to XP2 so that it would not cause problems when the server is down.

I hope that makes some sense.