I
itlogic
I will try to make this as brief and as simple to understand as possible. I
have been trying to figure this out for 2 days and finally got it. I wanted
to pass this on in case anyone else might have a similar situation.
SOME HISTORY
I have my main PC with Vista. I have two users my wife and myself. My
account is named "Joe". I got a new laptop for Christmas, also Vista, where
the only account is mine and I also named it "Joe". They both belong to the
same workgroup, not a domain.
MY INTENTION
I wanted to give access to the BCM database on my main computer with BCM on
my laptop. First, I didn't completely understand how to accomplish this in a
workgroup. I've done it many times in a domain, but a workgroup is different.
After some research I figured out, in a workgroup environment, I had to have
an identical account on my main PC that matched the account on my laptop.
Easy enough. I simply added a password to my "Joe" account on the laptop,
then had to add "Joe" as a user with rights to share the BCM database on my
main PC and a temporary password that matched the password I had just set up
on the laptop account. That part was done in the Share Database tool of BCM
on my main PC.
THE PROBLEM
When I went to the databse utilities, on BCM on my main computer, to add the
account I had just set up on my laptop, I noticed a problem. I could not add
the user "Joe" because "Joe" was already the name of the account on my main
PC.
Normally, that wouldn't be an issue in a domain. In a domain the user name
is preceaded by the computer name. So "//computer1/Joe" and "//computer2/Joe"
would be two different Joe's. In a workgroup, you can only read accounts on
the computer hosting the database server. So, in this case, I technically had
"//mainpc/Joe" and "//sonylaptop/Joe", but because this was a workgroup, they
would both be setup as local accounts on the main PC as "//mainpc/Joe" and
"//mainpc/Joe". That is not possible, so the only way to remidy the problem
was to rename the account on the laptop.
Ok, that might have been a little technical. The bottom line, in a
workgroup, you cannot have two accounts sharing a databse with the same name
even if they are on seperate computers.
THE SOLUTION
On the laptop, I went to my Users Accounts in Control Panel. Went to my
"Joe" account and renamed it to "Joe02". Piece of cake right? Not so fast! I
still could't get them to connect. I added "Joe02" to my users list in BCM
and made the temporary password the same as the password I set for the
"Joe02" account. I must have tried a million things to no avail. I'm one of
those crazy people that can't stand having an unsolved problem. So, it wasn't
surprising to me that it was 3 AM and I had to get up in 2.5 hours to get
ready for work. I tried one more idea, but that didn't work. But, I did
notice something just before I shut it down. The error message read somthing
like "blah blah blah user Joe blah blah blah". I thought to mysef... Joe? I
renamed it to Joe02, why is it reporting Joe?
I continued to shut it down so I could take a nap before going to work. The
next day I was reading an article from the Microsoft KB about sharing
databases in a workgroup. It didn't say anything I hadn't read already,
except for one sentence I would have probably missed any other day. It said
something about changing names of an account was just for display and didn't
actually change the identification of the account.
So, that would explain why the error message was reporting Joe instead of
Joe02. I changed the display name to "Joe02", not the actual account name.
So, I renamed "Joe02" back to "Joe" and then created a new account called
"Joe02" with that same password. "Joe02" was already setup in my BCM database
utilitied on the main PC, so I didn't have to do anything there.
After the new "Joe02" account was created, I went to the New or Change
databse tool in BCM on the laptop. Connected to MAINPC and there it was! The
name of the database on my main PC. I connected and it worked like a charm.
Wooo hoooo!!
CONCLUSION
Ok, sorry that wasn't as short as I had intended it to be, but hopefully it
is understandable. So far everything works GREAT! Now I just have to reset
things in my Joe02 profile that was set in my Joe profile on my laptop
becuase when creating a new account, you get everything back to square one as
far as desktop preferences and settings.
have been trying to figure this out for 2 days and finally got it. I wanted
to pass this on in case anyone else might have a similar situation.
SOME HISTORY
I have my main PC with Vista. I have two users my wife and myself. My
account is named "Joe". I got a new laptop for Christmas, also Vista, where
the only account is mine and I also named it "Joe". They both belong to the
same workgroup, not a domain.
MY INTENTION
I wanted to give access to the BCM database on my main computer with BCM on
my laptop. First, I didn't completely understand how to accomplish this in a
workgroup. I've done it many times in a domain, but a workgroup is different.
After some research I figured out, in a workgroup environment, I had to have
an identical account on my main PC that matched the account on my laptop.
Easy enough. I simply added a password to my "Joe" account on the laptop,
then had to add "Joe" as a user with rights to share the BCM database on my
main PC and a temporary password that matched the password I had just set up
on the laptop account. That part was done in the Share Database tool of BCM
on my main PC.
THE PROBLEM
When I went to the databse utilities, on BCM on my main computer, to add the
account I had just set up on my laptop, I noticed a problem. I could not add
the user "Joe" because "Joe" was already the name of the account on my main
PC.
Normally, that wouldn't be an issue in a domain. In a domain the user name
is preceaded by the computer name. So "//computer1/Joe" and "//computer2/Joe"
would be two different Joe's. In a workgroup, you can only read accounts on
the computer hosting the database server. So, in this case, I technically had
"//mainpc/Joe" and "//sonylaptop/Joe", but because this was a workgroup, they
would both be setup as local accounts on the main PC as "//mainpc/Joe" and
"//mainpc/Joe". That is not possible, so the only way to remidy the problem
was to rename the account on the laptop.
Ok, that might have been a little technical. The bottom line, in a
workgroup, you cannot have two accounts sharing a databse with the same name
even if they are on seperate computers.
THE SOLUTION
On the laptop, I went to my Users Accounts in Control Panel. Went to my
"Joe" account and renamed it to "Joe02". Piece of cake right? Not so fast! I
still could't get them to connect. I added "Joe02" to my users list in BCM
and made the temporary password the same as the password I set for the
"Joe02" account. I must have tried a million things to no avail. I'm one of
those crazy people that can't stand having an unsolved problem. So, it wasn't
surprising to me that it was 3 AM and I had to get up in 2.5 hours to get
ready for work. I tried one more idea, but that didn't work. But, I did
notice something just before I shut it down. The error message read somthing
like "blah blah blah user Joe blah blah blah". I thought to mysef... Joe? I
renamed it to Joe02, why is it reporting Joe?
I continued to shut it down so I could take a nap before going to work. The
next day I was reading an article from the Microsoft KB about sharing
databases in a workgroup. It didn't say anything I hadn't read already,
except for one sentence I would have probably missed any other day. It said
something about changing names of an account was just for display and didn't
actually change the identification of the account.
So, that would explain why the error message was reporting Joe instead of
Joe02. I changed the display name to "Joe02", not the actual account name.
So, I renamed "Joe02" back to "Joe" and then created a new account called
"Joe02" with that same password. "Joe02" was already setup in my BCM database
utilitied on the main PC, so I didn't have to do anything there.
After the new "Joe02" account was created, I went to the New or Change
databse tool in BCM on the laptop. Connected to MAINPC and there it was! The
name of the database on my main PC. I connected and it worked like a charm.
Wooo hoooo!!
CONCLUSION
Ok, sorry that wasn't as short as I had intended it to be, but hopefully it
is understandable. So far everything works GREAT! Now I just have to reset
things in my Joe02 profile that was set in my Joe profile on my laptop
becuase when creating a new account, you get everything back to square one as
far as desktop preferences and settings.