Access Denied errors on home network

R

Rowan Bradley

I need a better understanding of how Vista security works.
My home network consists of 2 Vista PCs plus various routers, access points
etc. One of the Vista PCs is my work notebook, which I move backwards and
forwards to work twice a day. At work it belongs to the domain SSK.LOCAL, and
I don't want to have the hassle of moving it out of this domain and into a
workgroup, and back again, every day. At home for simplicity's sake we don't
have a domain set up so the other (my wife's) computer belongs to the default
workgroup WORKGROUP. I have an account RowanB set up on my notebook. I have
an account RowanB set up on my wife's computer with the same password. I find
that I can access some folders on my wife's comptuer that belong to RowanB,
but not others. I can't access any folders on my wife's computer that belong
to her. I've set all folders to be fully accessible to RowanB, so I don't
understand what's giving the Access Denied error.
My questions are:
1. How does Vista check the identity of remote users who are trying to
access network shares?
2. What effect does it have if the remote PC belongs to a domain (whose
domain controller is not accessible), while the local one belongs to a
workgroup?
3. When validating the remote user's account, what is checked? Does it
matter that the remote user's account is on a domain controller, while the
local one (with the same username and password) is a local account on that
computer? Does Vista treat these two logons as being the same, or different?
4. I've seen somewhere that in Vista you can't share the root of a drive,
and elsewhere that you can. I've shared my wife's C drive as C. Does this
work?

To be honest we just don't need any security at all on this network. I'm
perfectly happy if any user on the network can have full visibility and
control of every file on every other PC on the network. So if I could just
turn off all security, I would. It's a complete pain in the butt.

What is the best way of setting all this up, and eliminating the problems
that I'm currently having?

Thanks - Rowan
 
R

Roy Norris

Hi,

My issue exactly. I don't need the so-called security. We just need to be
able to access or files on each computer. Instead I'm told I can't access my
wife's files. Everything is set for simple file sharing which worked without
a hitch before I "upgraded" my wife's PC to Vista. Now both systems are
visterised - waste of space.

Tried to add users - ie self and wife to each other computer - not allowed!
as only the base PC location can be accessed - what an utter mess!
 
G

Gordon

Roy said:
Hi,

My issue exactly. I don't need the so-called security. We just need to be
able to access or files on each computer. Instead I'm told I can't access my
wife's files. Everything is set for simple file sharing which worked without
a hitch before I "upgraded" my wife's PC to Vista. Now both systems are
visterised - waste of space.

Tried to add users - ie self and wife to each other computer - not allowed!
as only the base PC location can be accessed - what an utter mess!

Never had any problems here - are you using User accounts with passwords?
 
G

Gordon

Roy said:
Tried to add users - ie self and wife to each other computer - not allowed!

And how are you trying to do that? What do you mean by "not allowed"? In
Vista do Control Panel-User Accounts, click on "Manage another Account"
(if you are running as a Standard User which you should be), give the
Administrator password then click on "Add Account".
At what stage of that do you get "not allowed"?

as only the base PC location can be accessed -

What on earth does that mean?
 
J

Jack-MVP

Hi
Under C:\ make a Folder with a name like My Files.
Under this Folder make a sub Folder system like My Doc, My Movies, etc.
If you are the Network’s single user, or absolutely do not care about
security, switch On the Guest account.
http://www.ezlan.net/vista/vs-guest.jpg
Add the guest to the list of Sharing people as Co-Owner.
http://www.ezlan.net/vista/guest-owner.jpg
Then in the Permission allow the Guest Full Read Write control.
http://www.ezlan.net/vista/guest-control.jpg
Right click on the newly made main folder choose Sharing, and Add the Guest
Co-Owner as permitted to Share.
Be careful once this is done every one on the network can access the New
Folders, or any other Folde3r that the Guest or Everyone is allowed to.
Jack (MS, MVP-Networking).
 

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