My system runs XP Home edition, while most of my friends run Professional.
Due to this, we are nearly always unable to network and file share. Does
Service Pack 2 take care of this problem?
Flynot,
As Scott says, there should be no problem networking XP Home and Pro together.
Except the way each computer is setup.
On any XP Pro computer, check to see if Simple File Sharing (Control Panel -
Folder Options - View - Advanced settings) is enabled or disabled. With XP Home
and Pro together, you need to have SFS properly set on each computer.
Generally, enabling SFS, in this case, is best. If everybody trusts everybody
else.
With XP Home, SFS is enabled by design, and an XP Home computer can be accessed
by all computers on the network equally. If you enable SFS on an XP Pro
computer, this is also true.
With XP Pro, if SFS is disabled, check the Local Security Policy (Control Panel
- Administrative Tools). Under Local Policies - Security Options, look at
"Network access: Sharing and security model", and ensure it's set to "Classic -
local users authenticate as themselves".
With XP Pro, if you set the Local Security Policy to "Guest only", make sure
that the Guest account is enabled, thru Local User Manager (Start - Run -
"lusrmgr.msc"), and has an identical, non-blank, password on all computers. If
"Classic", setup and use a common non-Guest account, with identical, non-blank,
password on all computers.
For XP Home, OR for XP Pro with Simple File Sharing enabled, make sure that the
Guest account is enabled (for XP Pro, thru Local User Manager (Start - Run -
"lusrmgr.msc")), on each computer.
Do any of the computers have a software firewall (ICF or third party)? If so,
you need to configure them for file sharing, by opening ports TCP 139, 445 and
UDP 137, 138, 445, and / or by identifying the other computers as present in the
Local (Trusted) zone. Firewall configurations are a very common cause of
(network) browser, and file sharing, problems.
Cheers,
Chuck
Paranoia comes from experience - and is not necessarily a bad thing.
