Passwords for File Shaing

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tom
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T

Tom

I finally had to upgrade my peer-to-peer network of WIN98 computers to
XP Home.

Before the upgrade, I had the ability to safely share files on a network
occupied by other other computers outside my work group by requiring a
password before granting access to my shared drives and folder.

XP Home doesn't seem to offer this safeguard; or so it seems. I seems
you can either give nothing, or everything (everything meaning full
access, with or without editing capability).

Some site I found suggested using a utility (SCE from Service Pack 4?).
I'm not sure if this path is still available. I suspect MSFT wants
you to buy XP Pro or set up an NT server in order to get password
protection, but I'm not sure.

Is it possible to safely share files with XP Home connected to a
network? Is password protection possible?

Tom
 
How to set, view, change, or remove file and folder permissions in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308418/en-us

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows - Shell/User

Enjoy all the benefits of genuine Microsoft software:
http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/default.mspx

---------------------------------------------------------------------------­---------------------------------

:

| I finally had to upgrade my peer-to-peer network of WIN98 computers to
| XP Home.
|
| Before the upgrade, I had the ability to safely share files on a network
| occupied by other other computers outside my work group by requiring a
| password before granting access to my shared drives and folder.
|
| XP Home doesn't seem to offer this safeguard; or so it seems. I seems
| you can either give nothing, or everything (everything meaning full
| access, with or without editing capability).
|
| Some site I found suggested using a utility (SCE from Service Pack 4?).
| I'm not sure if this path is still available. I suspect MSFT wants
| you to buy XP Pro or set up an NT server in order to get password
| protection, but I'm not sure.
|
| Is it possible to safely share files with XP Home connected to a
| network? Is password protection possible?
|
| Tom
 
Carey said:
How to set, view, change, or remove file and folder permissions in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308418/en-us
Click to expand...

The paper you cite suggests I have a problem with XP.

My files are still in FAT32, so apparently password protection is no
longer available the way it was in WIN98 for files shared over a network.

If I buy XP Pro do I recover the password protection I lost by upgrading
to XP Home?

Are there some third party network packages/utilities that provide
password protection and avoid this problem? (Novell?)

The XP setup suggested keeping FAT32 since my hard drive wasn't very
big. I would probably have chosen FAT32 anyway, since I have several
legacy programs that might not work on NTFS. No XP upgrades are
available for my legacy database program and I can't justify switching
over to another database just to get some optional functionality I might
use once or twice a month.

I could experiment with running my legacy programs under NTFS, although
that seems like quite a side project. I would probably want to run that
experiment on another computer. I can't afford to lose my legacy database.

Perhaps I should buy an inexpensive computer dedicated to any new XP
applications. (I recall systems for switching your
keyboard/mouse/monitor from one PC to another.)

Perhaps I can keep my legacy programs on a WIN98 "server"; i.e. do my
legacy processing under WIN98 and make the results available over the
network to the XP computers; not convenient but cost effective.

Dual boot is a possibility, although probably inefficient. I would
probably use my IT guy for that (dual booting is a lot harder with XP
than WIN98).

Any suggestions?


Tom
 
No, you can still set share permissions on XP Pro, as in 98. You don't need
to use NTFS filesystem permissions, in fact they are too complex for most
purposes.

However with XP Home, you only have 'guest' permissions available, in other
words there can only be one global password for all users and shares. If you
set a password on the Guest account, that is the password required to access
shares. To do so, type 'control userpasswords2' in a Run box, and set a
password on the Guest account you see there. Don't be tempted to touch
group-membership settings as they don't apply to Home.

If that meets your security needs, OK. Otherwise you need Pro.

The other security-measure you can take is to restrict access to ports
137-139 and 445 (the filesharing ports) to IP addresses in your local group.
That should prevent outsiders from connecting in the first place. It can of
course be got around by changing a computer's IP address, but most users
wouldn't know how. For this you will need a slightly better firewall than the
default, though. Kerio or ZoneAlarm should do.
 
Ian said:
No, you can still set share permissions on XP Pro, as in 98. You don't need
to use NTFS filesystem permissions, in fact they are too complex for most
purposes.

However with XP Home, you only have 'guest' permissions available, in other
words there can only be one global password for all users and shares. If you
set a password on the Guest account, that is the password required to access
shares. To do so, type 'control userpasswords2' in a Run box, and set a
password on the Guest account you see there. Don't be tempted to touch
group-membership settings as they don't apply to Home.

If that meets your security needs, OK. Otherwise you need Pro.
Click to expand...

I just set a guest password by running "control userpasswords2", but the
network access is unchanged. That is, if I allow sharing of the drive
(simple file sharing(?) by right clicking the drive) I give universal
access over the network without password protection. If I deny sharing,
no one can get in and no password prompt is offered.

I'm a little confused. I seem to have set a guest password, but without
any way of using it. I don't see how I can even sit at this computer
and log on as "guest". Do I need to activate the guest access somehow?

Tom
 
Tom said:
I'm a little confused. I seem to have set a guest password, but without
any way of using it. I don't see how I can even sit at this computer
and log on as "guest". Do I need to activate the guest access somehow?
Click to expand...

I found by activating the guest account I can log in locally using the
guest password, but this does not give password protection over the
network, which is still either fully off or fully on (with editing
permission optional).

Tom
 
Tom said:
I found by activating the guest account I can log in locally using the
guest password, but this does not give password protection over the
network, which is still either fully off or fully on (with editing
permission optional).

Tom
Click to expand...

I formatted a drive in NTFS went into safe mode and found I had
additional security functions. Once again, my NTFS drive is either no
access or full access (with optional editing) and no prompt for a
password.

I am beginning to suspect you need WIN98 or an NT server to prompt for
passwords over the network.

Tom
 
OK, I got it working and here's what I see.

With XP Home, network visitors accessing your shared files always come
in through the guest account. You can't change this behavior because
simple file sharing and the guest account are always on in XP Home.
Therefore the guest account must have a password.

When you go into safe mode, XP Home exposes the security tab and
deceives you into thinking you can set up separate users with individual
passwords and privileges. You can't because unlike XP PRo, you cannot
turn off simple file sharing in XP Home.

One point of possible confusion. Once you set things up, you get the
sense that your shared files are not password protected, because members
of your workgroup only have to give the password once and thereafter are
automatically logged in. Users outside the workgroup always have to use
their password.
 
Tom said:
OK, I got it working and here's what I see.

With XP Home, network visitors accessing your shared files always come
in through the guest account. You can't change this behavior because
simple file sharing and the guest account are always on in XP Home.
Therefore the guest account must have a password.

When you go into safe mode, XP Home exposes the security tab and
deceives you into thinking you can set up separate users with individual
passwords and privileges. You can't because unlike XP PRo, you cannot
turn off simple file sharing in XP Home.

One point of possible confusion. Once you set things up, you get the
sense that your shared files are not password protected, because members
of your workgroup only have to give the password once and thereafter are
automatically logged in. Users outside the workgroup always have to use
their password.
Click to expand...

In other words, Ian was right.
 
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