networking a desktop that was on a domain, now a workgroup.

I'm trying to add an old desktop from my business (XP SP2, was on a domain)
as print server, financial computer at home for my wife. I cannot get it to
play nicely with the wireless network (on a workgroup). It recognizes the
laptop perfectly, access files, everything. Buy the laptop will only
recognice the desktop if I go looking at Workgroups in Explorer, and it will
not allow access to any files or resources. something to the effect of "user
not having access permission". I have removed its domain information and put
it on the workgroup, enabled simple file sharing. Am I missing some magic of
user access when I switched from the domain to the workgroup?
--
Bill

=?Utf-8?B?QmlsbCAwOTI3?= wrote
in :

I'm trying to add an old desktop from my business (XP SP2, was on
a domain) as print server, financial computer at home for my wife.
I cannot get it to play nicely with the wireless network (on a
workgroup). It recognizes the laptop perfectly, access files,
everything. Buy the laptop will only recognice the desktop if I
go looking at Workgroups in Explorer, and it will not allow access
to any files or resources. something to the effect of "user not
having access permission". I have removed its domain information
and put it on the workgroup, enabled simple file sharing. Am I
missing some magic of user access when I switched from the domain
to the workgroup?

Since you have enabled Simple File Sharing, all access to the drive
is through the "Guest" account. On many domains, the Guest account
is deactivated for security reasons. To check if this is your
problem, start a command window:
start-Run-"cmd"
then enter the command:
net user guest
There will be a line that starts "Account Active". Make sure that it
says "Yes". If it says "No", then enter the command:
net user guest /active:yes

Keep in mind also that there is a difference between a user account
being "active" and "enabled".

HTH,
John

Hey,
Well seeing that your computer runs Windows XP, and you moved from
a domain based network to a workgroup based one, the first thing you should
check for is if all the computers in your network are in the same workgroup
or in a different workgroup. If your old desktop and laptop are in different
workgroups you will be still able to see each other in the Windows Explorer
but it doesn't mean that you can have full access across workgroups unless
otherwise you configure it so in the first place, but if your not sure of
that, the best bet would be switching both the computers to the same
workgroup. I had this problem and it got fixed when i reconfigured the
workgroup after which i ran Network Identity wizard in both computers. I
hope this helps