XP Media Center can see one of the users but not all

[Information]

We have two XP Media Center systems on at least SP2.

The Dell has the following users: Administrator, Owner, A, B, C, D, E.
Administrator and Owner are not used. A through E were created for Mom and
four children. A printer is attached here and shared.

The HP has two users: Administrator and HP_Administrator. Administrator is
not used.

Both are on a wireless network and have internet access. Default settings
on the Linksys router with only Wireless Security settings customized.

The My Documnets folder for each user on the Dell is shared. We are on the
HP, can print to the Dell, and access user A's Documents. We can see B
through E, but cannot access them. We are logged in as HP_Administrator on
the HP.

As far as I can tell, users A through E are identical...in that they were
created (as Administrators) at the same time. Firewalls are disabled, AVG
Free 8.0 is installed, I can do everything I need to with A, just not B-E.

We have run the networking wizard with no change. Any insight is
appreciated, thanks in advance.

Dan

 

[Malke]

We have two XP Media Center systems on at least SP2.

The Dell has the following users: Administrator, Owner, A, B, C, D, E.
Administrator and Owner are not used. A through E were created for Mom
and
four children. A printer is attached here and shared.

The HP has two users: Administrator and HP_Administrator. Administrator
is not used.

Both are on a wireless network and have internet access. Default settings
on the Linksys router with only Wireless Security settings customized.

The My Documnets folder for each user on the Dell is shared. We are on
the
HP, can print to the Dell, and access user A's Documents. We can see B
through E, but cannot access them. We are logged in as HP_Administrator
on the HP.

As far as I can tell, users A through E are identical...in that they were
created (as Administrators) at the same time. Firewalls are disabled, AVG
Free 8.0 is installed, I can do everything I need to with A, just not B-E.

We have run the networking wizard with no change. Any insight is
appreciated, thanks in advance.

You need to create user accounts and passwords that match on both computers.
Do not disable firewalls; configure them properly. See below:

Problems sharing files between computers on a network are generally caused
by 1) a misconfigured firewall or overlooked firewall (including a stateful
firewall in a VPN); or 2) inadvertently running two firewalls such as the
built-in Windows Firewall and a third-party firewall; and/or 3) not having
identical user accounts and passwords on all Workgroup machines; 4) trying
to create shares where the operating system does not permit it.

A. Configure firewalls on all machines to allow the Local Area Network (LAN)
traffic as trusted. With Windows Firewall, this means allowing File/Printer
Sharing on the Exceptions tab. Normally running the Network Setup Wizard on
XP will take care of this for those machines.The only "gotcha" is that this
will turn on the XPSP2 Windows Firewall. If you aren't running a
third-party firewall or have an antivirus with "Internet Worm
Protection" (like Norton 2006/07) which acts as a firewall, then you're
fine. With third-party firewalls, I usually configure the LAN allowance
with an IP range. Ex. would be 192.168.1.0-192.168.1.254. Obviously you
would substitute your correct subnet. Do not run more than one firewall. DO
NOT TURN OFF FIREWALLS; CONFIGURE THEM CORRECTLY.

B. For ease of organization, put all computers in the same Workgroup. This
is done from the System applet in Control Panel, Computer Name tab.

C. Create matching user accounts and passwords on all machines. You do not
need to be logged into the same account on all machines and the passwords
assigned to each user account can be different; the accounts/passwords just
need to exist and match on all machines. DO NOT NEGLECT TO CREATE
PASSWORDS, EVEN IF ONLY SIMPLE ONES. If you wish a machine to boot directly
to the Desktop (into one particular user's account) for convenience, you
can do this. The instructions at this link work for both XP and Vista:

Configure Windows to Automatically Login (MVP Ramesh) -
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/Autologon.htm

D. If one or more of the computers is XP Pro or Media Center, turn off
Simple File Sharing (Folder Options>View tab).

E. Create shares as desired. XP Home does not permit sharing of users' home
directories or Program Files, but you can share folders inside those
directories. A better choice is to simply use the Shared Documents folder.

Malke