File sharing problems - "your folder could not be shared"

[Guest]

I am having a terrible time trying to share files from my Vista Home Premium
PC with my wife's PC (same OS). I am able to access her files, but not vice
versa. After lots of searching and trying, and even call to Microsoft, I am
still stuck.

Please do not respond to this with a link about how to setup a home network.

If I follow all the instructions exactly, I still get to "Your folder could
not be shared" when I try to share one of my folders. Even though this
message comes up, going back to check the folder by right clicking and
checking the properties, it looks like sharing and permission are both setup
correctly to share.

However, if I try to access my shared folders from my PC by going to network
then picking my computers name (BILL-LAPTOP) or if I try to access
BILL-LAPTOP from my wife's PC, we both get the error:

\\bill-laptop\c_drive is not accessible. You might not have permission to
use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find
out if you have access permissions. Windows cannot find the network path.
Verify that the network path is correct and the destination computer is not
busy or turned off. If Windows still cannot find the network path, contact
your network administrator

As an FYI, here is the latest email I sent back to my Microsoft support
agent. For $60, I am hoping they can figure this out.

I still cannot share files from my computer to be shared by other computers
on my home network. I can, however, access shared files on my wife’s laptop
with no problem. Both are running Vista Home Premium.

I have take the following steps to “start over†from scratch:

1. Uninstalled Norton Internet Security 2007
2. Rebooted
3. Turn off network discovery, file sharing, and password protected sharing
4. Rebooted
5. Turn on network discovery, file sharing, and password protected sharing
6. Rebooted
7. Attempted to share various folders, but always get “Your folder could not
be shared†error message every time, regardless of folder.
8. Went in to c: properties, added “everyone†to the permissions, then
enabled a share called “c_drive†which made the share path
\\bill-laptop\c_drive
9. Still cannot access this share from my wife’s PC, and cannot even access
it from my PC if I go to Network  bill-laptop  c_drive because I get the
error message \\bill-laptop\c_drive is not accessible. You might not have
permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this
server to find out if you have access permissions. Windows cannot find the
network path. Verify that the network path is correct and the destination
computer is not busy or turned off. If Windows still cannot find the network
path, contact your network administrator
10. This is the same error message that my wife receives if we try to access
\\bill-laptop\c_drive from her computer

 

[Malke]

I am having a terrible time trying to share files from my Vista Home Premium
PC with my wife's PC (same OS). I am able to access her files, but not vice
versa. After lots of searching and trying, and even call to Microsoft, I am
still stuck.

(snippage)

Where are the folders located which you are trying to share? Tell us the
full path, please.


Malke

 

[Guest]

The folders are in my user folder.

c:\users\<username>\Documents\Miscellaneous
c:\users\<username>\Pictures\
c:\users\<username>\Documents\Temp

The Microsoft tech setup my entire c: drive to be shared by setting
permissions so "everyone" could have full control, and setting a share up as
\\bill-laptop\c

None of this has worked.

:

 

[Malke]

The folders are in my user folder.

c:\users\<username>\Documents\Miscellaneous
c:\users\<username>\Pictures\
c:\users\<username>\Documents\Temp

The Microsoft tech setup my entire c: drive to be shared by setting
permissions so "everyone" could have full control, and setting a share up as
\\bill-laptop\c

None of this has worked.

1. Assign passwords to both user accounts on both machines if you have
not already done so. You can set the machines to automatically log into
the desired user account for convenience the same way as with XP:

Configure Windows to Automatically Login (MVP Ramesh) -
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/Autologon.htm

2. Create identical user accounts and passwords on both computers. You
don't ever have to log into the second user account; it just needs to be
there.

3. Make sure you have set your Local Area Network to "private".

4. There is no reason to share a Temp directory. Don't do this. If this
is a directory you created for something like "work in progress", rename
it to anything except "Temp", "Temporary Files", or the like.


Malke

 

[Guest]

Steps 1 - 3 are and always have been in place since I have been trying to get
this working.

Step 4 -- I just created a folder called 'temp' in my documents then tried
to share it to see if a new folder could be shared. This was not a temp
directory in the system sense.

Any other thoughts? Any ideas what triggers the "your folder could not be
shared" error message?

 

[Malke]

Steps 1 - 3 are and always have been in place since I have been trying to get
this working.

Step 4 -- I just created a folder called 'temp' in my documents then tried
to share it to see if a new folder could be shared. This was not a temp
directory in the system sense.

Any other thoughts? Any ideas what triggers the "your folder could not be
shared" error message?

Sorry, not without seeing your network. You are definitely doing
something wrong but there is no way for me to know what. I've had no
problems sharing between Vista Ultimate, XP Home, XP Pro, Linux and OS X
on my own network and in setting up home networks for clients.
Therefore, even though you said you specifically did not want to be
given links, basic instructions, etc., I can only suggest you go through
them systematically once again or have a local professional familiar
with Vista (and networking in general) come on-site and set you up.

In general, problems sharing files between computers on a network are
generally caused by 1) a misconfigured firewall; or 2) inadvertently
running two firewalls such as the built-in Windows Firewall and a
third-party firewall; and/or 3) not having identical user accounts and
passwords on all Workgroup machines; 4) trying to create shares where
the operating system does not permit it. You say you've done all those
things and still can't share files so something is wrong, but I'm afraid
I can't guess what. Perhaps someone else reading this thread will have a
better idea; however, often someone skilled who can actually *see* the
machines involved will immediately find the issue where people just
reading about it in a newsgroup will not.

Best of luck and I'm sorry I was unable to help you.


Malke

 

[GTS]

This won't solve your problem but might help narrow it. I suggest creating
a new folder off the root and seeing if that can be shared successfully.
Please let us know the result..
--

 

[Guest]

Interesting ... I created a new folder, right clicked to share and it ended
up being shared successfully. I did not get the "Your folder could not be
shared" error message. That said, I was still unable to access it from
either my PC by going to \\bill-laptop\testing or from my wife's PC.

I then tried to share an existing folder and got the message "Your folder
could not be shared" just as previously.

I double-checked by Norton firewall history to make sure there were no
blocks. It did not report blocking my wife's computer, so I do not thing
that is the issue.

 

[GTS]

It seems as if there are 2 different problems going on. I'm thinking about
the inability to share an existing folder - that one is a puzzle.
As far as access to the new share, if password protected sharing is
currently enabled, do you have a matching user for your wife's machine on
yours? If you open a command prompt on your wife's PC and run >start
\\bill-laptop\testing what error message is reported?
--

 

[Guest]

I can only hope that it is only 2 problems with this new OS. I miss my XP
even though it was getting sluggish. This OS started sluggish with a fast
new dual-core machine. But, sorry for the diversion.

If I run \\bill-laptop\testing from my wife's PC, I get the error that has
been showing up whenever I try to access \\bill-laptop\ from her PC (whether
by command lind, going into network, etc.), which follows:

\\bill-laptop\c_drive is not accessible. You might not have permission to
use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find
out if you have access permissions. Windows cannot find the network path.
Verify that the network path is correct and the destination computer is not
busy or turned off. If Windows still cannot find the network path, contact
your network administrator

I double-checked last night that her username and password were the same on
both PCs and they are. I also disabled password protected sharing and it
still didn't work.

I appreciate the ideas ... please keep them coming since I am out of my own
hypotheses / ideas.

I am supposed to get a phone call from Microsoft tonight at 9 pm. If they
resolve the issue, I will post the solution here in case others have the same
problem.

 

[GTS]

Sorry, but I've had no new ideas on this. Did you make any headway with
Microsoft?
__

 

[Guest]

Hi - I posted the results, but not as a reply to your last post. Here you go:

All -

Thanks for the help. As it turns out, my issue was something that was not
obvious even to Microsoft support. After about 4-5 hours on the phone with
Microsoft over a few days, my problem is resolved.

The network browser service was not working correctly. The tech tried to
stop and
restart it, but it would not restart. So, he had to copy over the part of
the registry that pertains to the browser service from his Vista setup to
mine. This corrected the issue.

He said that maybe trying to repair my Vista installation would have fixed
this. He hypothesized that an installation issue caused this problem, which
is not confidence inspiring since my PC came from Lenovo pre-loaded with
Vista.

 

[Guest]

All -

Thanks for the help. As it turns out, my issue was something that was not
obvious even to Microsoft support. After about 4-5 hours on the phone with
Microsoft over a few days, my problem is resolved.

The browser service was not working correctly. The tech tried to stop and
restart it, but it would not restart. So, he had to copy over the part of
the registry that pertains to the browser service from his Vista setup to
mine. This corrected the issue.

He said that maybe trying to repair my Vista installation would have fixed
this. He hypothesized that an installation issue caused this problem, which
is not confidence inspiring since my PC came from Lenovo pre-loaded with
Vista.

 

[GTS]

Interesting. Thanks for the update.

Hi - I posted the results, but not as a reply to your last post. Here you
go:

All -

Thanks for the help. As it turns out, my issue was something that was not
obvious even to Microsoft support. After about 4-5 hours on the phone
with
Microsoft over a few days, my problem is resolved.

The network browser service was not working correctly. The tech tried to
stop and
restart it, but it would not restart. So, he had to copy over the part of
the registry that pertains to the browser service from his Vista setup to
mine. This corrected the issue.

He said that maybe trying to repair my Vista installation would have fixed
this. He hypothesized that an installation issue caused this problem,
which
is not confidence inspiring since my PC came from Lenovo pre-loaded with
Vista.

 

[Jordan C]

Hello, I have a Lenovo laptop and am having the exact problem identified above. I have tried all the steps with no luck. I assume the registry correction will also fix my problem. Do you have a copy of the registry correction or more information so I can duplicate the fix? Thanks!

EggHeadCafe - .NET Developer Portal of Choice
http://www.eggheadcafe.com

 

[bjterp00]

Sorry -

I do not know exactly what was done. However, my problem has recurred, and
MS email support was unable to assist, referring me back to the phone line,
which I've not yet had time to call. Frustrating that they cannot
communicate with one another to solve my problem.

If I do get it solved via the phone support, I will post what was done.

 

[bjterp00]

Jordan -

Did you ever get resolution to this issue? If so, could you post the results?

 

[bjterp00]

Okay, here's what the fix ended up being:

Despite correct settings in my firewall, network & sharing center, etc., the
actual connection was not setup to have "File & Printer Sharing for Microsoft
Networks" enabled.

So, go to Control Panel => Network & Sharing Center => Manage Network
Connections

Right-click on the connection you're using (in my case, "Wireless Network
Connection", click on "Properties" and make sure "File & Printer Sharing for
Microsoft Networks" is enabled.

The tech said this should be inheriting its settings from the network
settings in Control Panel, but something may be inhibiting that from
happening.

 

[Jeffrey Randow]

There are several Lenovo Registry patches located on their support
page (at least for the T60 model)...

 

[bjterp00]

Yes - I have a Lenovo 3000 laptop, on which Vista Home Premium came
pre-installed.