Networking XP

[Bryan Martin]

I am helping a small company add new pc's to a new network. Setup looks
like this.... Wireless network with a cheap linksys router giving DHCP
addresses. NO wins server involved. Everyone is getting a 192.168.1.X
address automatically assigned. NO internet access. Pinging box to box
works throughout this whole sinking ship. Guest account is enabled and no
GPO set.

WindowsXP Media Center Edit running as server system. This box has their
accounting program database directory shared with everyone access. This box
also has a HP all-in-one trashcan hooked to it and shared to everyone.
Guest account is enabled on this box. I originally had this machine setup
and moved to the next "winxp home" laptop. Mapped the drive, connected to
the printer, tested everything and proceeded to move to the next pc. As im
hooking up the next box I am told the laptop will not print. Knowing I
already checked this I figure client problem and proceed to check what they
might be doing wrong. Turns out printer will not respond to printing from
the laptop or the xp box its hooked into. I proceed to reboot both boxes
assuming something hiccupped with the network. After everything comes up I
check from the pc serving the printer and printing goes as expected. I then
turn my attention back to the laptop. I proceed to check printing... no go.
Nothing appears to be happening. I go into the "printers-n-faxes" and
remove the printer figuring I will just reinstall the darn thing. I remove
it successfully and proceed to surf to the xp box using the ole internet
explorer \\myserver. It pukes. Ok so next I figure I will go through the
entire network view and get it. I get to where all the computers in the
workgroup show and the "server" shows as expected. I attempt to double
click on it and get thrown a access denied. I figure ok so something
screwed up with the sharing on the "server" so I proceed to check it again.
I tried to un-share re-share, remove/reinstall "file and print sharing" for
the adapter and every other thing I can think of. Next I figure I will try
to map the drive directly. Low and behold this works. I CAN map the drive
successfully using the command prompt "net use X: \\server\dir".

Can anyone shed some light here?

Tried:
unshare / share
remove / reinstall "file and print sharing"
made sure guest account enabled
Pinging by name successfully works as expected

 

[Dave]

how many machines are trying to connect to the 'server'?? note that
non-server versions of win2k and any winxp will only allow 10 incoming
connections for file or printer sharing and then will give 'access
denied'... this is a hard coded limit, the fix is to buy a real server.

 

[Robert Kister]

It sounds like a rights issue.

Since you're not running a server OS here you'll need to manually
administrate the ACL. This means making sure that every user is added to
every machine that offers network resources. That could make for a lot of
work so I suggest you try to use common logons where possible.

Good Luck

Robert Kister

 

[Ross Durie]

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

 

[Daniel Carwile]

I think Robert Kister has hit the nail on the head. The machine you are
using as a server has to have user accounts for each person that will be
accessing it. IE the user name and password has to be the same as the way
they logon to their pc. Or you can try setting up some universal User name
and password and each time they try to access the server they will be
prompted for user name and password. This is how my Win 2000 pc works
anyway. I would suggest the user account for each person to access the
server. This way it happens in the background instead of them typing a
different user name and password each time they use resources on the server.
I am assuming that the XP built in firewall is turned off on all XP
machines.

Danny