Disable guest account causes access denied to shared folders

[Guest]

I have a peer to peer enviroment where all wks are running XP Pro with all
patches applied. All wks have shared folders and printers and the Network
Setup Wizard has been run.

By default the "Guest" account under "User Accounts" is disabled but there
is also a "Guest" account under "Computer Management" which is NOT disabled
by default. In order to prevent the infamous problems with active guest
accounts on wks, the "Guest" account was also disabled under Computer
Management on all of the wks. After this was done, no one was able to access
any of the shared folders or printers on the other wks. Thinking back to Win
2K, individual user accounts were added on each wks that each user remotely
accessed and added the user accounts to the Power Users Group. After which
the remote shared resources were still denied.

If the Computer Management Guest account is enabled, users are again able to
remotely access shared resource on other peer wks.

Why are there two Guest accounts and what is the difference that is causing
the above problem?

Thanks in advance.
Don

 

[GTS]

The Guest option under Users Accounts grants or denies permission to login
as Guest locally at the machine only. The other permission concerns network
access through the Guest account. This can also be enabled/disabled by the
command

net user guest /active:yes (or no). Windows XP Pro can use Simple File
Sharing (the default in a workgroup) or standard file sharing (the default
in a domain and an option otherwise). This is configured under Folder
Options / View (last item on list).

Simple file sharing uses the guest account to authenticate. Standard file
sharing requires an account on the share server with a user name and
password matching the workstation accessing the share (like in Win 2K). It
sounds like you disabled the guest account, but did not turn off simple file
sharing which is why user based permissions failed.

See How to configure file sharing in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/304040/en-us to learn more about sharing in
XP.

--

 

[Guest]

GTS,

Thanks for the feedback. I'll take a look at the KB. I'm sure that with your
feedback this issue can be resolved.

Thanks again.
Don

 

[GTS]

You're welcome.
--

GTS,

Thanks for the feedback. I'll take a look at the KB. I'm sure that with
your
feedback this issue can be resolved.

Thanks again.
Don

 

[Guest]

Hey GTS,

I jsut wanted to follow-up to let you know that your info did the trick! It
also addressing another related shared folder issue.

Thanks again!
Don