XP file security tab not showing other computers

[Tony]

I am networking other XP computers and want to give
selective read/writeaccess to folders from users on other
PC's on network. Sharing/security tab accessed OK but when
adding names (objects) the locations section is local
computer only. I have set NETBIOS on, and Computer browser
is running. Should I see other computers/workgroups here?

Tony

 

[Gary Tsang]

Hi,

Is your hard drive disk format NTFS?

 

[Ron Lowe]

I am networking other XP computers and want to give
selective read/writeaccess to folders from users on other
PC's on network. Sharing/security tab accessed OK but when
adding names (objects) the locations section is local
computer only. I have set NETBIOS on, and Computer browser
is running. Should I see other computers/workgroups here?

Tony

What you see is the correct behaviour.

In a workgroup ( as opposed to a Domain ), a computer can only reference
user accounts defined locally ( on itself ).

The work-around is to create matching user accounts on the local machine
which are the same as the user accounts on the remote machines where the
other users are logged in. ( same username and password ).

In otherwords, you need to maintain simultaneous user accounts for all users
on all machines to be able to grant access rights in a workgroup. After
the network expands beyond a few servers, this does not scale well and
maintaining these simultaneous accounts becomes an admin burden. That's
when you need to look at setting up a domain using windows server 2k3 or
similar. This permits the creation of a 'centralised' user account
database which all the machines can access.

When you have a domain, then in the loactions section, you can select
between local users or domain users.

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

If you are on a domain, you can choose the local or domain/directory context
when selecting groups/users. However, in a workgroup, you can't add remote
(non-local) groups or users to the security settings on your computer - what
most people do here is tocreate all users accounts & passwords identically
on all computers so that you can control access this way.

NetBIOS over TCP/IP doesn't have anything to do with this - it just controls
browsing, so you can see other computers in network neighborhood.

 

[Tony]

Thanks for solving this problem. I always knew that
domains were the answer, but this network is only 4/5
stations. Nowhere in the help supplied by MS, (or even in
the O'Reilly manual is the simple response you have given.
Thanks again.

Tony