Win XP gets "access denied" to shared printer on Win 2K machine

[Guest]

I recently added a new Win XP Home machine to my home network. The network is a Workgroup and has a Win 2K Pro machine running as a "file and printer server.

Whenever I try to initally print from the Win XP machine, I get an "access denied" message. To temporarily work around this, I go to My Network Places, search for the Win 2K Pro machine, and click on a shared folder. Win XP then asks me to login. At that point, access to the shared files and the shared printers is good until the XP machine is powered down

How can I avoid the need to do this the first time after a power up? The other machines on the network running Win 2K Pro and Win 98 don't require the login procedure. What is different in Win XP Home?

 

[Bruce Sanderson]

Windows XP, like 2000 uses user account based security.

To access anything on the W2K computer, you have to be authenticate using a
username and corresponding user account that is known on the W2K computer.
Unfortunately, when the printer is connected (when you logon at the Windows
XP computer) there is no automatice prompt to supply the username and
password. When you connect to the shared folder on teh W2K computer you get
authenticated on that computer, so other "connections" (e.g. for the printer
share) don't have to be re-authenticated.

So, you have a few choices:

1. create a user account on the Windows XP computer that has the same
username and password as an existing username on the Windows 2000 computer.
Then, logon at the Windows XP computer using that username.

2. on the Windows XP computer, open a Command Prompt window and key the
command:

net use \\w2kcomputername\IPC$ password /user:W2Kusername
/persistent:yes

password is the password associated with the W2Kusername

In either case, if you change the password of the W2Kusername, you will
need to either change the password for the corresponding username on the
Windows XP computer or re-issue the net use ... command with the new
password.



--
Bruce Sanderson MVP

It's perfectly useless to know the right answer to the wrong question.

I recently added a new Win XP Home machine to my home network. The network

is a Workgroup and has a Win 2K Pro machine running as a "file and printer
server."

Whenever I try to initally print from the Win XP machine, I get an "access

denied" message. To temporarily work around this, I go to My Network Places,
search for the Win 2K Pro machine, and click on a shared folder. Win XP then
asks me to login. At that point, access to the shared files and the shared
printers is good until the XP machine is powered down.

How can I avoid the need to do this the first time after a power up? The

other machines on the network running Win 2K Pro and Win 98 don't require
the login procedure. What is different in Win XP Home?