Setting a Folder Password on a workgroup Server

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Guest

Hi,

I have a Machine with Windows XP Pro acting as a program server for an
office. I want to make the folder more secure rather than setting the folder
as shared and making it so users can change the files. How can I set a
password on this folder so certain users can log into it and change data but
others can not? It is currently on a workgroup, not a domain, and the IPs
are all manually configured? If I remeber right, there is a way to
enable/disable simple networking, etc. Any Help out there? Thanks,
Dave
 
Hi,

I have a Machine with Windows XP Pro acting as a program server for an
office. I want to make the folder more secure rather than setting the folder
as shared and making it so users can change the files. How can I set a
password on this folder so certain users can log into it and change data but
others can not? It is currently on a workgroup, not a domain, and the IPs
are all manually configured? If I remeber right, there is a way to
enable/disable simple networking, etc. Any Help out there? Thanks,
Dave
Click to expand...

Windows XP doesn't have passwords for shared disks and folders the way
that Windows 95, 98, and Me do.

Since the server computer has Windows XP Professional, you can disable
"simple file sharing" and define access control lists that specify
user names and their allowed mode of access. Ron Lowe and I have
written a web page with details of this very powerful feature:

Windows XP Professional File Sharing
http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/xp_filesharing/index.htm
--
Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Networking)

Please post any reply as a follow-up message in the news group
for everyone to see. I'm sorry, but I don't answer questions
addressed directly to me in E-mail or news groups.

Microsoft Most Valuable Professional Program
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
 
Thanks, Steve, I appreciate your help. I have one other question, however.
I went through the guide, most of it I remeber from sharing i have done
before. I set the user accounts how they should be on my server machine,
etc. Now when I go to connnect to the server from one of the remote
machines, at the "connect to server" screen in the "View Workgroup Computers"
screen it prompts me for a password but any password I entered on the server
does not work. Also, the User Name portion of the logon screen is greyed
out. In the Greyed out area, what I am seeing for a user name is
SERVER\guest. But I can't change it, any ideas on how to change that?
Thanks for your time.
Dave
 
Dave said:
Thanks, Steve, I appreciate your help. I have one other question,
however.
I went through the guide, most of it I remeber from sharing i have done
before. I set the user accounts how they should be on my server machine,
etc. Now when I go to connnect to the server from one of the remote
machines, at the "connect to server" screen in the "View Workgroup
Computers"
screen it prompts me for a password but any password I entered on the
server
does not work. Also, the User Name portion of the logon screen is greyed
out. In the Greyed out area, what I am seeing for a user name is
SERVER\guest. But I can't change it, any ideas on how to change that?
Thanks for your time.
Dave
Click to expand...



The problem is on your server.
It's not configured correctly.

A portion of Simple File Sharing is still apparently in effect, which causes
something called Forced Guest authentication., but the Guest account is
disabled or passworded ( which is probably what you intended. )

When you disabled Simple File Sharing on the server machine, that should
have un-set an option called ForceGuest. What this does is in Simple File
Sharing, it forces all incoming connections to authenticate as the Guest
account. If for some reason, this parameter did not get re-set to false,
then your perfectly valid username is getting ignored, and you are being
treated as the Guest account.

On the server machine, re-enable simple file sharing and OK your way out of
the dialogs.
Then disable it again, and OK your way out of all the dialogs.
You may need to re-boot for the changes to take effect, I can't remember.

Then look and see if the check-box for Simple File Sharing is still
un-checked.
This should have turned off ForceGuest.
To check that it has:

On the server machine run regedit,
and navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa

Ensure that the ForceGuest value is set to 0 or false, if present.

Then try to re-connect from a client.
 
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