Remote admin basics

[Guest]

Hi everyone,

My situation is this. My organisation has a wired network of 13 computers,
most of which are running XP Professional. They are all on the same
workgroup, we're not using a domain. 4 of these machines are for office use
and the other nine are used for training people in basic computer skills.
They are, for all intents and puposes, open to the public. The training
machines, although they have been there for a while, have hardly been used at
all and we are only now bringing in a project to use them.

I'd like to know how to use the MMC to adjust policies on the upstairs
machines from the office. I'm probably missing something buried deep in the
documentation, but all I get when trying to use the Computer Management
plugin is the message "Error 5: Access is denied"

My questions are these:

How can I authenticate myself on these remote machines with the purpose of
using the MMC when not in a domain?

What policies, settings or services should be set to permit this?

I'm considering using the Shared Computer Toolkit to help me set these
machines up, is this advisable for someone with my piecemeal knowledge.

Thanks for your time!

 

[Steven L Umbach]

You need to be logged onto your computer with an account [same
logon/password and a password must be used] that is in the local
administrators group on the computers you want to manage. If you believe you
already are then try to specify the IP address of the computer you want to
manage instead of the name in case there is a name resolution problem and if
the Windows Firewall is enabled on the computers you want to manage you will
need to specify that exception for file and print sharing and remote
management for at least your computer's IP address. The computers you want
to manage would also need to have simple file sharing disabled otherwise you
may authenticate as guest account. You can check on and do such via Windows
Explorer/tools/folder options/view and uncheck the last option for use
simple file sharing. The Shared Computer Toolkit is excellent to use in a
workgroup and has good documentation and you can remove/uninstall it if it
does not work as you like. --- Steve