Re: Home Network problem

On Sun, 30 Aug 2009 20:38:41 -0700, Jeff Liebermann <jeffl@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On Sun, 30 Aug 2009 20:50:45 -0500, Char Jackson <none@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Things to check:
identical users exist on all three machines with identical passwords

IIRC, this is not applicable to XP Home because Home only uses Simple
File Sharing. Identical user accounts don't apply to Simple File
Sharing.

I just looked that up. That's a requirement for Pro, but not for
Simple File Sharing. Incidentally, Pro supports both Simple File
Sharing and ACL (access control lists).

Please allow me to rephrase your answer for (hopefully) some added
clarity. "That's a requirement for Pro" isn't quite correct.

- Simple File Sharing doesn't require matching user accounts.
- Simple File Sharing is available in both Home and Pro.
- Simple File Sharing is the only method available in Home.**
- Simple File Sharing is the default in Pro, but is easily disabled in
favor of the ACL method.

**You can sort of fake the ACL method in Home after logging on as
Administrator.


Home:
<http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/xp/filesharing.htm>

Pro:
<http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/xp_filesharing/index.htm>

firewalls are all set to allow filesharing

Agreed, and IME the Windows firewall is rarely the problem. It's those
blasted Internet security suites that I run into most often.

Yep. In particular, Norton Internet Security drives me nuts. I have
yet to figure out how to undo the damage, disable the stupid firewall,
or deal with multiple security zones where the machine acts
differently in different locations. I suppose there's a benefit to
doing all that for perhaps 10% of the users. However, it drives the
other 90% nuts.

all machines in the same Workgroup

This isn't applicable, either, is it? I bring random machines into the
shop on a regular basis and am always able to access workgroups other
than mine. It takes an extra couple of mouse clicks, but no big deal.

It's important. Viewing the machines on the networks is a bit awkward
if they're in different Workgroups. You have to specify the Workgroup
every time you issue a network command or use a share. For example:
net view
will show all the machines in your Workgroup, but not the other
Workgroups. To see those, you have to use:
net view /network:workgroup_name
Since net view is the back end to the "My Network Places" mess, you
won't see the other machines.

I typically use the My Network Places stuff, and so far I haven't run
into issues related to different workgroups. I expand My Network
Places, see the various workgroups, click to expand the one I want,
and click to access it without further ado.

all machines can ping each other with IP address and hostname

IP address, yes, but hostname has never been something I worry about.

I like to use this test to see if things are working. It takes all
the GUI complexity out of the picture.
Start -> run -> cmd
\\machine_name
or
\\192.168.xx.xx
to show the available shares. It's a good fast test to see if
networking is setup correctly. If it hangs for about 10 seconds, it's
not working.

Yep, I do that too.

Incidentaly, if you need some entertainment value at the local coffee
shop, try running the above commands pointing to the ip addresses of
the various laptops in the coffee shop. An amazing number have the
firewall turned off and shares wide open (with no password). So do I
but the exposed directories are full of software bombs. I wrote one
that fills the screen with crud.
<http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/crud/crud.com>
Hit the space bar to exit. I also have one that makes all kinds of
awful noises on the speaker, which has been handy for identifying the
hackers.

Isn't Windoze networking fun?

I've done that, but not at a coffee shop. Amazing what you can find.

.

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