remote commands to another xp machine

[Marsha]

First, please redirect me to the correct subforum if this isn't the proper
one to help me.

I have a network of 6 machines (workgroup, not domain) all running XP SP2.
Everything works just fine, lots of shares, internet access, etc. I have a
user account (same name and pw) on all machines that is the same and has
administrator privledges. Also there is an Administrator account with the
same pw on each machine.

I'm trying to do low level control of machines and running into stuff I
don't understand about logon access and other related problems - so I have a
number of questions, but I'd like to start simple. That works best for me.

I have 2 workstations (alpha and beta) both with xpsp2. If I try to use the
command "systeminfo /s beta" from alpha, I get a prompt for password (using
my local account on alpha. I then get "ERROR: Logon failure: unknown user
name or bad password." If I put either local accounts (on alpha) or accounts
on beta (using beta\name and password) I get the same results.

The second oddity with this simple activity is doing the same operation from
beta always results in the error message "The RPC server is not available"
after a long timeout. MSKB indicates this is the result of beta not being
able to contact alpha, but it does pings fine, looks at shares just fine,
etc.

As a small aside, I connected a laptop running win2k to the network, and
from alpha I can give the command "systeminfo /s laptop" and it works just
fine.

What am I doing wrong, and where can I learn more about how to debug
problems at this level? Articles, this forum, etc.

Thanks

 

[Marsha]

A small update - ignore the paragraph about "The second oddity....." It's no
longer the case. Both computers prompt the same and report the same ERROR.