I have just built a new machine that is going to live on my network. Part of its job is going to be to serve files to clients running various OS:

1) XP Pro
2) XP Home
3) Linux (embedded into media devices)

At present these files are on an XP Pro machine but as I dont have the lolley to buy another Pro license, I thought that XP Home should do fine.

The problem I have, apparently, is that XP Home only supports "Simple File Sharing" and I want to make my shares more secure than just giving the "Everyone" group access.

To do this I have taken the following steps:

1) Changed the "Guest" account password.
2) Created a common user on both the Home and Pro machines, with the same password.
3) Shared a Folder

Now at this point I would expect to be able to browse the share on the Home machine from the Pro machine using the shared user account details. This does not work ! Instead I am presented with a Guest login box ?

I thought that perhaps the permissions were wrong on the Home machine, so I have used CACLS to change the "Users" and "Everyone" group to read only and force the shared account to have Full privilegdes. Even so I am still presented with the Guest Login !

As soon as I put the correct "Guest" account password in, I am allowed to browse the share but only with Guest privildges (ReadOnly) and not with Full rights as defined for the shared account through CACLS.

Does anyone have any ideas or am I expecting too much from XP Home ?

make sure "allow network users to change my files" is ticked.  XP Pro allows you to set specific accounts to have access, Home only allows all or nothing.  You may have to reboot as well.  Ive got my XP home box set for sharing common files, and network drives mapped up to it.

I have some software from intel that provides all the permissions etc on the XPhome machine. not sure if it will help in this instance but ill dig it out.

Will boot Xp in a bit and have a look

Beaker: Thats what I really want to avoid.

I didnt realise that you couldnt use duplicate accounts to specify additional permissions. It seems really crap that there is no way to say "Share Folder to User Bob Only" in XP Home.

brummie, if you do have some software thatd be great

pmd ya

It was worth a go but it does not solve the problem

It looks like all File/Folder sharing on XP Home is done using the "Everyone" group :s

If I change the permissions for the "Everyone" groupthen the network access is changed accordingly.

If I remove the "Everyone" group then I can no longer access the share even though I am using the same username/password on the remote machine.

XP Home is a bunch of bobbins.

hide the share$ ?

That doesnt solve the problem though.

Dont get me wrong, its not like I have loads of random people who can access my network (or machine). I am just a seriously paranoid (and anal) individual who likes everything locked down as it should be.

I just cannot believe that MS would leave an XP Home machine this vulenerable by default. It seems crazy to me :/

The clues in the name I think unfortunately

I think youre right

I am currently doing some manual Policy editing (through the registry) but I get the feeling that the actual services are missing :/

What else is the box to be used for ooi? If its just file-serving some flavour of linux would do the job I guess.

Its going to become my main rig, eventually.

So Linux is a big fat no-no

I made the fatal mistake of sticking my Pro License on my Shuttle and cannot remove it without ripping/destroying it :/

The more I play with Home the more I think I am going to have to go out and buy Pro though

I mean it seems totally daft that they allow Home to be a VPN server (same as Pro) but that you cannot use Terminal Services, Remote Desktop or adjust file sharing permissions !!

Frankly, MS are odd !

oh well, dont be so tight next time  

cant you hang on 5months for their next offering?

Home connects to terminal services no problems here.  Though this machine is outside the domain.

just remember to put "DOMAIN\USERNAME" into the login box as youll be outside the domain.  

http://www.zombiechorus.com/rick/desktop.jpg

You can get VPN to work from HOME?! blimey! Ive never got that working.

And beaker, you can connect to terminal services, but you cant use terminal services on the home machine.

I.E. you cant access home remotely. It also wont work on domains