Networking four XP Pro clients and two printers 3

[deisehun]

I have four XP Pro clients with Wireless adapters that connect to the internet via Broadband.

There is a Netopia Router that issues IP addy's in the 192.168.1.x range and all clients receive an IP address in this way.

I want to have all clients to be able to browse shares on one anothers pc.

I also want to have two local printers connected via USB on two clients, shared so that all clients can print to them.

Does anyone foresee any problems with this?

Thanks..

 

[sh321]

Just ensure that all PCs are members of the same workgroup name and all should be fine.

I think you need to create the same usernames on all the PCs so as credentials are not required when trying to access shares. This would also be necessary in order to set security permissions on the resources.

Firewalls would sometimes block access to other PCs- just add an exception to the software to allow it.

Sharing the printers wouldn't be a problem either- the only downside is that the computer(s) would have to be switched on in order for others to print to (well, as would be the case for accessing folder on other PCs too)

If possible, I would try and have one PC host all the folders/printers to be shared- it just makes things easier to administer and only one PC would have to be on to access the resources.

 

[deisehun]

Thanks for the info.

By having the same user setup on all the clients - do you mean just creating a user and call it Printershare (for example) or would they all have to login as the same user?

 

[smah]

Workgroup name is irrelevant. If you're just sharing printers, you can give everyone access easily. If you want to apply specific user permissions to specific file shares, then you'd want duplicate usernams and passwords on each pc.

For XP [home style] simple file sharing, see

http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/xp/filesharing.htm

For XP Pro full NTFS file sharing, see

http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/xp_filesharing/index.htm

 

[sh321]

I thought by having all PCs on the same workgroup, it would just make it easier to browse the group of computers and then accessing any shares - if direct mapping of these were not created. Of course there are many other ways to access the shares too- just this way it being in a graphical format.

You can create users by any username and password you wish, just as long as you also create the exact same credentials on the other PCs.

 

[Yardyy]

one last thing to note is that some routers have a feature whereby they lockdown the clients so that the cannot connect to each other, just ensure that if your router has this feature, that you disable it.

Otherwise anythiing that you do will not work, at all.

Hope that helps.

Many Thanks
Yurov Ardyy

 

[deisehun]

Thanks for all the replies