xp home network - printer sharing for guest 1

[Dragonfish]

Hallo !!!

I am setting up a small office network using XP Professional (ServicePack 2) and I am setting up file and print sharing. On administrator accounts this works fine throughout the network. It does not work for the Guest account. Guest can access the internet

This means that the following are not issues
- the network setup (ip addresses etc)
- the printer/file sharing done on the computer running the printer
- the OS (Service pack 2 - service pack three is not needed)

Using cmd, I have run "net user guest /active:yes" on the workstations wishing to share the printer to give Guest network access. Cmd confirms that Guest is active. As I said, the administrator can see the shared folders and use the printer but the guest still cannot. I have read article "

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308007"

which was insufficient for the specific problem of Guest priviliges.

What more must I do. please be tell me everything relevant to guest privilages to get this going.

Thanks
David M. Gullever
david.gullever@web.de

 

[kjv1611]

Using cmd, I have run "net user guest /active:yes" on the workstations wishing to share the printer to give Guest network access.

I have never used any commands as such on WinXP for network sharing that I can recall. However, you say use used "net user guest /active:yes". Have you tried something like "net user \\OtherMachine\guest /active:yes"? The reason why is that when you just say guest on one machine, you're referring to the guest account on THAT machine, not the one you're wanting to share with. If you specify the other machine's network name, then maybe that'll work?

By the way, if the \\ orientation does not work, try with the slashes turned around. For whatever reason, I can never seem to remember which way to point the slashes.

 

[Dragonfish]

Thanks kjv1611 for the try,

actually xp didn't take the command any way round I tried it.

What I'm trying to set up is an Internet cafe (in Uganda !!!). So the machine with the printer has a user that is logged on as admin. and everyone else is guest. As I said guest is seeing the internet.

We're getting around the problem at the moment by having the guest save whatever he wants to print on the shared folder. Frome there the admin on the printing machine can open and print it. but it's not perfect although it does have some advantages.

Thanks again
Dragonfish

 

[Dragonfish]

Thanks kjv1611 for the try,

actually xp didn't take the command any way round I tried it.

What I'm trying to set up is an Internet cafe (in Uganda !!!). So the machine with the printer has a user that is logged on as admin. and everyone else is guest. As I said guest is seeing the internet.

We're getting around the problem at the moment by having the guest save whatever he wants to print on the shared folder. From there the admin on the printing machine can open and print it. but it's not perfect although it does have some advantages.

Thanks again
Dragonfish

 

[kjv1611]

I do have a different idea, but it will depend upon whether or not you need XP on the "admin" machine. If that machine is just for file and print sharing, you might want to look at setting up a Linux based LAMP server, or something to that extent. Various Linux distros work very well for that sort of setup.

Another option would be setting up FreeNAS for these options, but I don't know anything about the print server side of things there. The file server part works great.

If you want to look into various ways of doing a Linux based file/print server, have a look here:

http://howtoforge.com/

There are TONS of walkthroughs there for various setups.

And then there is also Windows Home Server or of course the Windows Server OS.

The benefit of using Linux in this sort of setup is there are no (that I'm aware of) connection limits. So, say your Internet cafe grows to 15 or 20 users. The limit on XP Home, at least, maybe Pro as well (I forget) is 10 users at a time. So if you've got 15 or 20 people wanting to print, save/access files on a shared network drive, etc, then you're going to run into issues with Windows XP.

I'm no Linux buff by any means, but for basic usage, I really think Linux would be the best option here. You don't require any specific applications that I can tell from your question, and I don't imagine you've got a Windows Domain setup to worry about either.

If you DO setup a Linux based server for this project, and run into questions, the best place to ask them on tek-tips is:
forum54

 

[vacunita]

Is the Printer's security settings on the machine its connected, and shared on, is the Guest account set to be able to use the Pinter?

Is the Printer Set up under the guest account? Is it available under Printers and Faxes?



----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Behind the Web, Tips and Tricks for Web Development.

http://behindtheweb.blogspot.com/

 

[Dragonfish]

Thanks both of you (kjv1611 and vacunita),

since you've both gone to a lot of trouble thinking about my problem, I'll tell you what this is all about.

The internet cafe here in Kampala serves a dual purpose. It's a standard internet cafe for the general public and a "LINUX practice centre" for the Students at Makerere - since they don't have anywhere else to practice LINUX. For that reason all Workstations are (will be) dual boot XP/Debian Linux.. And Later there will be LINUX Servers on the network for Student project work. I've talked to the University and at the moment they're supporting me.

But to get back to my present problem:
One must remember that the general Public in Uganda don't know about anything except Windows and to use an old German phrase "was der Bauer nicht kennt - das frist er nicht !!!" So for the general public, its XP Workstations

- the File and print sharing works fine as long as everyone is logged on a Admin.
- The Workstation that has the printer attached to it, is used by the Internet Cafe Manager and has some Free software on it called called Butterfly that everyone here uses to manage Internet Cafes. He is logged on as Admin.
- The general public should logon to the Workstations they use for surfing as Guest - and that's where the problem is.

At some future date the Managers workstation will become a LINUX Machine but I will need a while to set that up. And at the moment I need a QUICK FIX !!!

I was thinking, that "net user guest /active:yes" was all I had to do to give the user Guest Network access, but it seems that Microsoft require some diabolically obscure tweeks that Techs like me don't know about.

Oh by the way...
The issue about max connections = 10 is new to me - thanks for the Info. And thanks for the pointer to

http://howtoforge.com/

- will check that out right away.

Dragonfish

 

[kjv1611]

I can't remember for sure that the max connections is exactly 10, but I do know it is a set number, and that number is small... 10 just seems to be what I remember.

Here's a thought:

Create your own "guest" account, and call it whatever you prefer. Give it a password, and put the same account on both the "server" machine and the "client" machines. Then, see if you can apply the right permissions for THAT user, and if so, have people use that instead, and turn the Guest account off. Just set that user up as a limited user, and even use Microsoft Steady State to protect the system settings further if you wish:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...FamilyID=d077a52d-93e9-4b02-bd95-9d770ccdb431