Enable File/Print Sharing Remotely (on the windows firewall)

How, if possible at all, can you ENABLE File/Print Sharing remotely?

As we all know, if the Windows Firewall is running yet file/print sharing is
not checked - you cannot do admin$ shares, can't access remote registry, or
start/stop services remotely and probably other things I'm leaving out.

At any rate - how would you enable FPS remotely - without using Group Policy
or some type of remote desktop connection to the machine. I know about the
NETSH command, but of course you can't use that to hit a remote machine to
enable FPS since it would be disabled and would block the remote connection.
It's a strange circle in Windows - you want to access the machine remotely,
but can't since FPS isn't enabled, but you need to enable it, but can only do
it remotely.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

Basically there are three approaches to remote management of computers, you
join them to a domain and use domain tools such as group policy, or you use a
login script to run remote commands. Or, you can take control of the computer
using Remote Desktop methods.

Any of these requires the computer to be preconfigured to allow it, which in
a corporate LAN would normally be done at roll-out time. It stands to reason
that if that were not so, anyone -including intruders- could do the same.

Firewall rules can be configured by netsh as you mentioned. or by direct
registry changes.

That said, these days I tend to stop the Server service on desktops. This
prohibits all sharing. Sharing items from desktops is not a good practice.
Printers are best networked directly using TCP/IP or LPR methods. (Plan ahead
and buy suitable models, otherwise use adaptor-boxes) Any data worth
preserving should be on a server.

One of the key issues with 'workgroup' sharing is that any shared folder or
printer being offline can lead to hesitation and slowness in all Explorer
functions, even those which do not explicitly access this resource. Thus, you
end-up with every computer in the office being left running 24/7 to avoid
this problem.

"steve02a" wrote:

How, if possible at all, can you ENABLE File/Print Sharing remotely?

As we all know, if the Windows Firewall is running yet file/print sharing is
not checked - you cannot do admin$ shares, can't access remote registry, or
start/stop services remotely and probably other things I'm leaving out.

At any rate - how would you enable FPS remotely - without using Group Policy
or some type of remote desktop connection to the machine. I know about the
NETSH command, but of course you can't use that to hit a remote machine to
enable FPS since it would be disabled and would block the remote connection.
It's a strange circle in Windows - you want to access the machine remotely,
but can't since FPS isn't enabled, but you need to enable it, but can only do
it remotely.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance.