Frederick wrote:
I currently have three XP (P3) machines networked together via CAT5 to
a wireless router. I call them machine-1, machine-2 and machine-3.
All are in Workgroup 'MYHOME'. All folders & files on all 3 machines
are set to file sharing, allowing all user mods to same.
'My Network Places' on machine-1 shows all content of machine-2, and
allows accessing/changing to same. It does NOT show machine-3 at all.
'My Network Places' on machine-2 shows all content of machine-2 &
machine-3, and allows accessing/changing to same. This is as it
should be.
'My Network Places' on machine-3 shows all content of machine-1 &
machine-2, and allows accessing/changing to same. This is as it
should be.
So, basically, my problem is that I cannot access the content of
machine-3 from machine-1, and I cannot figure out why not. I have
tried several things - to no avail. It seems strange to me that
machine-3 seems set up correctly enough to link both ways with
machine-2, but only one way with machine-1. Otherwise, my network
seems to work fine.
Did you disable the Guest account on any or all of those hosts?
Disabling the Guest account also disables some MS network services; see:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/l.../bb418978.aspx
When not participating in a domain, protection is afforded for the
resources offered by the remote host by using the Guest account because
it is NOT an administrator-level account. The Guest account is also
described in the Microsoft KB article at:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300489
Here they conflict with their advice above by recommending to NOT
disable the Guest account. However, almost every security scanner
checking for hardness of your host will tell you to disable this account
because of default of not having a password to login. They tell you to
create a normal user account (i.e., a limited user account) instead of
using the Guest account. The real problem is having a Guest account
with no password. If you trust your own intranet hosts that are not on
a domain and want to share files between them, and especially if those
intranet hosts are behind a router with NAT (which has its own
firewall), then you don't need to be concerned about possible hacking
into your intranet hosts as long as the Guest account has a strong
password on it.
"Tips for creating a strong password"
http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Win...3db571033.mspx
(just one scheme for strong passwords; other schemes are also viable)
Also read:
http://windowsitpro.com/article/arti...practices.html
http://www.ghacks.net/2007/12/03/dis...unt-correctly/
http://www.lockergnome.com/windows/2...rs-holy-grail/
Until I read the above, I couldn't figure out why file sharing ceased to
function between my host OS and a guest OS in a virtual machine (and I
had to resort to using VirtualPC's shared folder feature which is part
of the VM Additions install). If you decide to enable the Guest
account, be sure to set a STRONG password on it.