Allowing guests to connect while still having secure shares?

[Guest]

Here's my situation. I would like to allow Guest (or other guest accounts) to
access certain shares, while still having other shares allow access to only
certain accounts. After doing a few tests, I can't figure out a way to do
this. If an account is a guest, it can see everything available to guests,
but when it tries to access anything protected, it's simply denied access. Is
there a way to (for example -- not sure if this is exactly possible) only
show that login dialog once a user tries to access something not available to
guests? Or, at least, is there a way to get similar functionality?

 

[Malke]

Here's my situation. I would like to allow Guest (or other guest
accounts) to access certain shares, while still having other shares
allow access to only certain accounts. After doing a few tests, I
can't figure out a way to do this. If an account is a guest, it can
see everything available to guests, but when it tries to access
anything protected, it's simply denied access. Is there a way to (for
example -- not sure if this is exactly possible) only show that login
dialog once a user tries to access something not available to guests?
Or, at least, is there a way to get similar functionality?

XP Home or Pro?

Malke

 

[Guest]

Professional, and I have experience mucking around in the admin tools and
file permissions. I just couldn't find the right combination to make it work.

 

[Malke]

Professional, and I have experience mucking around in the admin tools
and file permissions. I just couldn't find the right combination to
make it work.

Turn off Simple Sharing and disable the Guest account. Create a new user
group and call it something like "visitors" (not "guest"). Add a user
account called "friends" (or whatever you like for the temporary users)
and make it a member of the "visitors" group. Set permissions on the
group with Group Policy Editor. Have your guests log into that account.
Make the shares/permissions as desired, only allowing members of the
"visitors" group to have access where you want.

Malke

 

[Guest]

That defeats the purpose of guests. I would have to still give out the
account information to anyone who wanted to connect. What I'm asking is if
there's a way to allow users to access some shares without requiring a login,
just like if simple file sharing were on.

 

[Malke]

That defeats the purpose of guests. I would have to still give out the
account information to anyone who wanted to connect. What I'm asking
is if there's a way to allow users to access some shares without
requiring a login, just like if simple file sharing were on.

The Guest account is not meant for when you are feeling hospitable. It
has very specific uses and is normally considered a security risk and
is therefore disabled by default in other operating systems and by
carefull sysadmins.

Here is an explanation of it for XP:

http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=300489

From your post, it seems that you want some folders to be off-limits to
visitors (let's call them that). But you don't want to create accounts,
user groups, or have logins. How do you expect Windows to know who is
allowed to access a particular folder without doing that? If you want
to deny permission to enter a folder, you have to first assign
permissions to that folder.

If I've misunderstood what you are trying to do, then please explain a
bit more. Is this your home computer and you want to keep some
information strictly private from people who are visiting your home and
might use your computer? If this is the case, consider getting some
third-party software and password-protecting the files you want to keep
private instead. Then you wouldn't have to have the logins, etc. Do a
Google Groups Advanced Search on the newsgroup
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general and use the search term, "password
protect folders" and you'll see quite a lot of threads covering that,
including suggestions for third-party software. This Google Web search
brought up over 627,000 links, also:

http://www.google.com/search?q=password+protect+folders+XP&btnG=Search&hl=en&lr=

I'm sorry that I can't personally recommend a particular program for
this sort of thing because I use user accounts and groups to control
access in my operating systems.

Good luck,

Malke