Guest account still appears on from network

[ronsherman]

I just added a fourth PC to my home network. All XP. The new one shares the DSL line, like the others do. The new one can get to shared objects on the the other three. But the other three cannot get to the new one's files or printer, because when I click on the new one's name (Mary) I get a greyed out Mary\Guest as the "User Name" and cannot logon on. I turned off the Guest account on Mary, using both "User Accounts" and "Users" from Computer Management. The new computer had been in an office environment, where it was part of a domain and did a netlogon when started. I have changed the system name, and put it into a "workgroup" and fixed the TCP/IP. I now log into a local user account(administartor access) and that account is the only enabled account in the system. So why is "Guest" still showing up? Is there a lingering resistry entry that I need to manually change? The "Welcome" screen on the new system has been disabled

 

[ronsherman]

Found it myself - "ForcedGuest"

I found this at http://www.cramsession.com/articles/files/connection-credentials-in-9162003-1616.asp

Turning off "simple file sharing" (see below) allowed the other computers to get to the new one, albeit with a password. Tomorrow's problem!
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4) Is ForceGuest enabled?

Yes: Success, create access token using the Guest account and we are done.
No: go to 5.

ForceGuest is a new feature of Windows XP that ensures that all file and print connections to the Windows XP computer, either using an existing user name or a non-existing user name, will use the Guest account, instead of the true credentials of the user. You may know it under the more familiar name: Simple File Sharing.

Effectively this means, that no one can create a remote administrative connection to the Windows XP computer. And this includes the local administrator of Windows XP! This is a great plus for home users. Even if somebody on the Internet were to know a user name and password combination for administrative access to the Windows XP computer, that combination can not be used to remotely connect to the computer with higher privileges. The attacker would always just be Guest.

This option is always on for Windows XP Home, but does not apply to Windows XP Professional computers in a domain. For stand-alone Windows XP Professional computers, you can disable the option.

The registry value ForceGuest at HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\LSA determines whether this option is on or off. In the Windows XP user interface, you can change this through Explorer/Tools/Folder Options/View/Use simple file sharing or set a security option in group policies: 'Network access:Sharing and security model for local accounts'.