Everyone is not Everyone?

[MrRadio915]

My Win2k Pro SP4 machine has suddenly started requiring Username and Password from a WinXP Home SP1 machine. The XP machine is in a different workgroup, but it worked for over a year.
The drives on the 2k machine have full permissions to "Everyone".

I defragged the XP machine and installed a new audio card driver on the 2k machine at the time that it started requiring UN and PW.

The XP machine is the bosses personal laptop and I have highly recommended SP2 - I've even given him a disk with the full install package.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[jmille34]

Are the usernames and passwords are synchronized on both machines?

 

[MrRadio915]

Thanks for the reply. I'm at my whits end.

No. The usernames and passwords are not synchronized on both machines and they never have been to the best of my knowledge.

Unfortunately, the boss's machine is HIS personal machine and he hates usernames and passwords. He is quite irritated that it once worked and now it does not.

I don't know whether to look at his XP Home SP1 machine or at the Win 2k Pro machine.

He can access other shares on other machines w/o username or password and other machines can access the Win2k machine w/o username and Password. It is just the combination of HIS machine and that particular Win 2k machine.

Thanks for the reply. I'm at my whits end.

 

[wolluf]

If the 2k machine wasn't asking for a password before it suggests the guest account was enabled and has somehow become disabled. With the guest account disabled (which is the default situation), the XP machine user would need to be logged on with a username/password combination that exists as a user on the 2k machine to NOT be asked for username/password. So you could look at the guest account on the 2k machine - and enable it if its disabled (though this is considered a security risk if the machine has an internet connection).

 

[bcastner]

On the Win2k machine:
Start, Run, net user guest /active:yes

If this doesn't solve the problem and you are still being asked for a password, check for stored network passwords on the XP Home machine.

Click on: Control Panel
Click on: User accounts
Click on your own account.
Click on: Manage my network passwords
Check whether there are any stored passwords for the target computer. If so, remove them.
I

 

[MrRadio915]

The user manager in W2k indicated that the guest was active. I've run the command line in the prior post, when the boss comes in, we'll see if it works.

I've investigated the "manage password" option - it seems that XP Home has crippled that, and other network friendly functions... argh.

Thanks everyone for your help.

 

[bcastner]

Start, Run, control userpasswords2, click the Advanced tab, click Manage Passwords

 

[MrRadio915]

Thanks for your brain work on this one. When I do that (or go to it from the users applet in the control panel) there is no option to 'Add', and the list, even after authenticating, is empty. According to the MS website (I don't have the URL, sorry) 'manage passwords' in XP Home, is disabled except for their .net realm.

I REALLY do appreciate everyone who has contributed to this thread. I'm MCP in NT 4.0, but shortly after receiving the certification, I was job-displaced from the computer world and am now re-engaging with W2k and XP.

 

[MrRadio915]

OK, final post...

In Win XP Home, there is NO WAY to (within the OS) store passwords. You can get around this Nuisance by using the NET USE command. Perhaps in a .bat file

(NOTE: This is NOT a secure way as it exposes usernames and passwords in plain text!)

Here's the Syntax:
net use [{DeviceName | *}] [\\ComputerName\ShareName[\volume]] [{Password | *}]] [/user:[DomainName\]UserName] [/user:[DottedDomainName\]UserName] [/user: [UserName@DottedDomainName] [/savecred] [/smartcard] [{/delete | /persistent:{yes | no}}]

Here's the URL from Microsoft:

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/net_use.mspx?mfr=true

 

[Auger282]

did you check to see if the NTFS permissions match the shared permissions? Both NTFS and share should give full rights to everyone.

 

[MrRadio915]

Yup... it's a wide open shared root of the drive. All the permissions say "everyone" so I believe the only difference is that the machine that contains the share is in a different workgroup from the XP Home machine. I pulled my hair out on this one. Spent most of three days researching the situation.

The bottom line is that XP Home is a crippled version of XP Pro. (So is as is XP Media Center). Much of the "network specific" functionality within the OS has been removed.

My recommendation (and Microsoft's) don't use XP Home in a network (workplace) environment. In fact, XP Home simply WILL NOT WORK in a domain environment (according to the MS website and not my experience).

 

[J741]

Does the Windows 2000 computer connect to a Domain based network ? If so, then 'Everyone' does not mean everyone. It actually means everyone who has used an authenticated logon to the network domain controller, and nobody else.

However, if the Windows 2000 computer does not connect to a Windows 2000 domain, and is simply part of a peer-to-peer network, then the easist way to do this is to add a user account (on the Windows 2000 computer) with the exact same user-name and password as is used on the Windows XP comptuer.

As some of the previous posters have mentioned, you could also use the 'guest' account, but if you do then you must check the security policies in the Windows Policy Editor to make sure that network access with a blank password is allowed (Not allowed by default on Widnows XP, but I can't remember the default in Windows 2000), and also that the 'guest' account is allowed to access network resourced.

Also, as was previously mentioned, you should check the advanced security settings of the folder you are trying to share, and make sure that the folder permisisons allow the desired access to the user (not just the share permissions).



My memory is not as good as it should be, and neither is my memory.

I have forgotten more than I can remember