XP Home bug?

[Nak]

Hi there,

I have a bit of a strange problem. I am using my computer in a home
network, all 3 computers are connected to the same router. Up until now I
have had no problems with file sharing from my computer, that is until
today. Yesterday and today I have been configuring 2 of the computers so
that I can develop ASP.NET applications with maximum security. What I have
done to achieve this is create an account on 1 of the computers (Running XP
Pro and IIS) that is identical to the other computer (Running XP Home, use
as the development computer).

Now I have things working I need to share something from my XP Home
computer, *but* I cannot share any files. So I took a look inside of my
network connections, I right click on my LAN connection and check the
properties out, BING!!

"Some of the controls on this property sheet are disabled because you do not
have sufficient privileges to access or change them."

WTF? This computer has only 1 account and that account is
administrator! What is happening? Has the computer running XP Pro somehow
applied advanced security permissions to my computer running XP Home?
Because I now cannot share files across the network. Help on this would be
greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.

Nick.

I do hope this isn't a bug!

--
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
"No matter. Whatever the outcome, you are changed."

Fergus - September 5th 2003
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

 

[Mario]

Yes, with your WinXP Pro you can change advanced file permissions on WinXP
Home share, making them unaccessible even to Admin on the WinXP Home
machine. On WinXP Home you can either share a file or not, WinXP Pro allows
you much finer grained control. As a matter of fact, when I had a laptop
with WinXP Home on it, the first thing I did after I connected it to
corporate network was to connect with Windows 2k Pro machine to it and
properly set share permissions .

So this is not a bug, but a feature

 

[Nak]

Hi Mario,

Yes, with your WinXP Pro you can change advanced file permissions on WinXP
Home share, making them unaccessible even to Admin on the WinXP Home
machine. On WinXP Home you can either share a file or not, WinXP Pro allows
you much finer grained control. As a matter of fact, when I had a laptop
with WinXP Home on it, the first thing I did after I connected it to
corporate network was to connect with Windows 2k Pro machine to it and
properly set share permissions .

So this is not a bug, but a feature

I have just observed that my Administrator account is now a GUEST account,
so no, this is not a "feature" it is a bug. It seems that it might have had
something to do with initially logging onto the XP Pro system, one of the
security policies specified that local users logging on remotely should be
authenticated as guest, that is how I originally logged onto the system
until I found out how to do it correctly, somehow this has managed to effect
my computer by changing the account! I have *no* way of changing it now!!

The only other thing that I can think of is the log on screen, I changed a
setting yesterday that forces the user to press "Ctrl + Alt + Delete" twice
before logging on, but if it was TweakUI that I used I can't find the
setting anymore, probably because I am now a guest on my own computer!
Christ, what a position to be in, bugger bugger and bugger!

Nick.

--
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
"No matter. Whatever the outcome, you are changed."

Fergus - September 5th 2003
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

 

[Lorne Smith]

There is still an Administrator account available in XP Home, but you can
only log in to it from Safe mode. Reboot and tap the F8 key until you get
the boot options screen, the choose safe mode and after startup you will be
able to log in as the system default Administrator account (password is
normally blank). You should then be able to put your other account into the
Administrators group...

Lorne

 

[Nak]

Hi there,

There is still an Administrator account available in XP Home, but you can
only log in to it from Safe mode. Reboot and tap the F8 key until you get
the boot options screen, the choose safe mode and after startup you will be
able to log in as the system default Administrator account (password is
normally blank). You should then be able to put your other account into the
Administrators group...

Phew, I have just managed to get the account back, indeed there is another
Administrator account but everytime I tried using it from my other account
it would request a password, it doesn't have a password. So what I done
was,

* make a new account with admin priviledges in safe mode
* log onto the account in normal mode

( My *normal* admin account had now disappeared from the login screen,
attempts to simply make a new account with the same name failed, stating
that an account already existed with that name )

* Due to the control panel being awkward I had to run "CONTROL
USERPASSWORDS2" from the command line
* The I gave my old account Admin priviledges back, it had been given
"Debug users" priviledges by something or another
* I then deleted the account that saved my arse, aptly named
"FU*KP1GBA5TARD"
* All was well
* Aspersions were made

Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!! bugger! I hope that doesn't happen again!

Nick.

--
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
"No matter. Whatever the outcome, you are changed."

Fergus - September 5th 2003
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

 

[Lorne Smith]

Glad you've sorted it out... I've certainly never seen that happen before
but for future reference, don't forget that in-built Administrator account
is damn usefull and cannot be accidentally deleted

Lorne

 

[Nak]

Hi there,

Glad you've sorted it out... I've certainly never seen that happen before
but for future reference, don't forget that in-built Administrator account
is damn usefull and cannot be accidentally deleted

Yeah, don't worry I won't forget about that one! phew! Damn computers I
don't know why they have to be so stupid sometimes! Thanks for your help.

Nick.

--
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
"No matter. Whatever the outcome, you are changed."

Fergus - September 5th 2003
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

 

[Mario]

That is weird. But in any case even if you lose your password for admin
account, you can easily reset it. I have a linux boot floppy, with a nifty
little program that allows you to edit the resigtry and hence SAM database
(of course it can read NTFS), so you can reset or set password to whatever
you want for any account. If you have physical access to a machine, geting
through password protection in Windoes is a triviality really.

 

[Nak]

Hi Mario,

That is weird. But in any case even if you lose your password for admin
account, you can easily reset it. I have a linux boot floppy, with a nifty
little program that allows you to edit the resigtry and hence SAM database
(of course it can read NTFS), so you can reset or set password to whatever
you want for any account. If you have physical access to a machine, geting
through password protection in Windoes is a triviality really.

It seems to be that hackers have more luck getting into Windows than I do my
own system lately!!! Thats the second time recently that I have been locked
out, the first time was due to a Product Activation cock up :-(

Ive got my eye on the priviledges, I'm not loosing those again!

Nick.

--
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
"No matter. Whatever the outcome, you are changed."

Fergus - September 5th 2003
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\