F
Frank LaRosa
You know, I've been a dedicated user of Windows NT and Windows 2000
almost since they've been available. I use them at work, and at home
on my home network. I understand the networking, file sharing and
security settings pretty well.
Recently I bought a new laptop and it came with XP Home Edition
installed. I know XP is built on the NT/2000 code base so I figured
I'd give it a try. Once I disabled all the cutesy graphical doodads
and turned off all the "hide this" and "simplify that" options, it
seemed to be just fine.
Then one day I made a share, and tried to grab some audio files I had
saved with Sound Forge from another computer. All I kept getting was
some error message saying "the file may be in use". But the file
wasn't in use. After pulling my hair out for hours, and wondering
where the hell the Security tab for files was, and why I couldn't seem
to either log in as or access the actual Administrator account, I
finally came across an article about a tool called "cacls" that I
could use to set the file permissions from the command line. But only
per-user, or to "Everyone", since XP Home apparently doesn't have
groups.
What's up with this? Why do I have to use some arcane command-line
tool in order to share a file with myself, on my private local area
network, logged in to both computers with administrator accounts? Why
can't I actually log in to Windows XP as Administrator like I can do
with Win 2000? Why does Sound Forge default to creating new files with
a permission that prevents me from sharing them? If I, an experienced
Windows NT user with 10 years of networking experience, could barely
figure it out, what must Joe User who's never seen a C: prompt in his
life going through?
Do I need to drop $200 for an XP Professional upgrade just so I can
have a real network?
Frank
almost since they've been available. I use them at work, and at home
on my home network. I understand the networking, file sharing and
security settings pretty well.
Recently I bought a new laptop and it came with XP Home Edition
installed. I know XP is built on the NT/2000 code base so I figured
I'd give it a try. Once I disabled all the cutesy graphical doodads
and turned off all the "hide this" and "simplify that" options, it
seemed to be just fine.
Then one day I made a share, and tried to grab some audio files I had
saved with Sound Forge from another computer. All I kept getting was
some error message saying "the file may be in use". But the file
wasn't in use. After pulling my hair out for hours, and wondering
where the hell the Security tab for files was, and why I couldn't seem
to either log in as or access the actual Administrator account, I
finally came across an article about a tool called "cacls" that I
could use to set the file permissions from the command line. But only
per-user, or to "Everyone", since XP Home apparently doesn't have
groups.
What's up with this? Why do I have to use some arcane command-line
tool in order to share a file with myself, on my private local area
network, logged in to both computers with administrator accounts? Why
can't I actually log in to Windows XP as Administrator like I can do
with Win 2000? Why does Sound Forge default to creating new files with
a permission that prevents me from sharing them? If I, an experienced
Windows NT user with 10 years of networking experience, could barely
figure it out, what must Joe User who's never seen a C: prompt in his
life going through?
Do I need to drop $200 for an XP Professional upgrade just so I can
have a real network?
Frank