Hosts file to access drive on another computer

[Aubs010]

Basically:
I am developing a back-end/front-end database.

The back-end will reside on a file server.

The front-end will connect to the back-end (linked tables) using UNC paths, i.e. \\servername\folder\ etc.

Because I am testing things at the moment and don't have access to the actual file server, I thought about setting up another machine to 'act' as a temporary server.

The nature of my network, I cannot rename computers, otherwise it would have been simple to rename the test machine to myserver and I could simply connect via \\myserver.

I then thought about using the hosts file. Entering the following:
10.82.200.43 myserver

(where 10.82.200.43 is the IP of the machine)

But then when I try and connect to it, it fails. I can ping myserver without any problem.

Another strange one, if I put the following in:
127.0.0.1 randomserver

and connect to \\randomserver\ it asks me to log in with a username/password, but none are accepted. Incidentally, the titlebar of the login dialog displays my actual computer name.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.



Aubs

 

[Sympology]

Does the remote machine have sharing set up?

Robert Wilensky:
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.

 

[Aubs010]

Hi Sympology, thanks for replying.

I'm not sure that it would matter as it would just return an empty explorer window.

I have just tried it on a new XP install (not on the network), change the hosts file to:

127.0.0.1 localhost random

Then explore \\random\ and it gives me a blank window.

I assume it must be something to do with Active Directory and/or group policies, but maybe not.





Aubs

 

[Sympology]

Your machine will have rights to access it's own shares, but not others.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/814004

If you have enough rights you can get to pc's by doing

\\PCnameorIP\c$



Robert Wilensky:
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.