[Judas]

OK, this is getting quite tiring trying to resolve.

Thought i had it, did have it, lost it.

Long story short, i KNOW i'm not alone with this freaking stuborn issue.


Heres the deal:

Everything should as easy as setting both machines up under the same workgroup name.

Example for me is the workgroup name for both machines being "JUDAS"

ok that's simple.

Next both machines are named differently, for example:

Main machine ~> "Client-JUDAS"
Other Machine ~> "Client-JUDASH"

Ok that sounds great.... doing fine now.

Next open up the Network center.

Disable Passwords

Enable File Sharing, And in the case of printers, enable Printer Sharing, AND Network Discovery set to on as well.

Great.. now last task:

Right click the Partition/drive/folder/whatever and click SHARE, enable sharing and allow permissions for whatever the task is. So in my case, i set the permisions for EVERYONE to CREATE/MODIFY/READ.

Ok that should have covered it all correct?

but if i go over to the other machine and load everything up, go to networks, find the my client with the shared drive, find the shared drive, try to access it and get a huge freaking "DENIED".

now someone, anyone, wtf am i missing here?

Tried doing it the other way around, no dice.


When i get this fixed, i'm going to edit this freaking post with the full discription and solution, and dammit, pin it! (lol)

[Judas]

image for reference... can you find the missed options?

[Monkeyboy]

Did you set the Guest account to have access privilidges to your share?

[dipstick]

Edit- Oops, passwords are disabled

[Judas]

They both have full admin rights, there are no guests....

[technonerd]

Ah I see the problem ....


















Vista.

[Monkeyboy]

Unless you're running a Windows server, I'm pretty sure that one PC will connect to another other with guest rights. Therefore you need to enable the guest account on the PC that is sharing and give it at least read privilidges to your shared folder.

[Judas]

?

why?

I should be able to set both computers, logged in as admins.... to work without passwords on, set the folders/drives i wish to share up for everyone, and then use it as such..... but it's like windows isn't working properly at all.

[scorp64]

Check the firewall settings on both systems and make sure that's not blocking things.

By the way I've seen similar issues between XP boxes in a workgroup configuration.

[Judas]

I've never had an issue with windows XP pro.... home yes.... but not pro..

and vista, the firewall settings are allowing it.. however, both machines are acting like they don't have the privilages to access each other.. like the passwords are required yet. (same damn message, it's like turning passwords off had no effect)

[Monkeyboy]

In order to improve security, accounts are more sophisticated on Vista than they were on XP. An account created on one PC will have no meaning on another (unless you set them both the same with the same passwords. or you're running one of the Windows server products of course in which case you can set up a domain and the account will be recognised on every machine). Therefore you need to assign the guest account 'read' priviledges at least so that you can access your files from another PC.

I'm sure that's the way it works - unless you have a server installed, in which case you can set up accounts which will be valid domain-wide.

This was very frustrating for me too until I set my system like this. Since then I have no problems accessing and using files shared on my other machines.

I hope you get it resolved soon - try it and let me know how you get on.

Edited to add:

I did some digging, here you go:

"When you disable password protected sharing, the computer sharing the folder does not require a user account or password. Anyone on your network can access the shared folders of the computer (provided the folder was shared for the Guest or Everyone account). This behavior is equivalent to simple file sharing in Windows XP."

There are other ways of setting up sharing, as described in this MS document (from which the above quote is taken) -

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/net.../vista_fp.mspx

[Judas]

ok reading through that all.. i should be able to click the SHARE button in sharing, but that isn't available (greyed out).... however advanced sharing is available, and clicking SHARE FOLDER is an option.... which i've done..

wtf?

I can't seem to find anything in relation as to why the normal ol SHARE button is greyed out.

[Judas]

OK, this is imo, kinda stupid...

why would microsoft disallow anyone from sharing a single Partition/drive/whatever, however allow you to create a folder within that drive, and then share that with everyone? IMO that's beyond stupid.

I don't want to share a bloody folder.. i want the entire drive

[Monkeyboy]

Is it already shared, by any chance?

[Judas]

no..

[ykill]

try enabling UPnP, I had a similar problem and it worked

[Monkeyboy]

Originally Posted by Judas

no..

Yeah, it is....

The root of each hard drive is shared by default under Vista (as it was under XP, 2000, NT and LanMan which all came before it). MS networks automatically share the root as a hidden, admin share (i.e. C$ for the C drive, D$ for the D drive etc) which is why it won't allow you to share the drive "again" using the ordinary sharing option... but you can, as you already said, go into advanced sharing and make another share of the same drive.

It's just the way that MS networking has always worked - pretty confusing to some especially if you're used to Netware, but we get used to the idiosyncracies of MS eventually.

[Judas]

Er?

if i don't have anything at all shared on the drive from the start.... then the drive isn't shared itself at all is it?

And i'm doing nothing different then what i've done with every version of windows. right click the drive i wish to share in full, and hit share.. but the option is greyed out...

[Monkeyboy]

Originally Posted by Judas

Er?

if i don't have anything at all shared on the drive from the start.... then the drive isn't shared itself at all is it?

And i'm doing nothing different then what i've done with every version of windows. right click the drive i wish to share in full, and hit share.. but the option is greyed out...

Regardless of whether you have any data on the drive, it is still shared out by default by the system.

From the MS document I linked to above:

"Sharing the Root of a Drive..

Windows XP by default created administrative shares for the root folders of the fixed drives of the computer. For example, for the root of the C: drive on the computer named BobPC, Windows XP automatically shared \\bobpc\c$. The “$” at the end of the share name means that the share name will not appear in the list of shares. For computers running Windows Vista that are members of a workgroup, these adminstrative shares exist but are blocked for network access for security reasons. You can create your own shares to share your drives from the root of the drive, but Microsoft highly recommends that you share only the folders that you need to, rather than the entire drive.
To share the root of a drive, right-click the drive in the Computer window, and then click Share. Windows Vista displays the properties for the drive with the Sharing tab selected. The Share button and the File Sharing dialog box are not available. However, you can click Advanced Sharing. In the Advanced Sharing dialog box, click Share this folder and specify the share name, permissions, and other settings as needed. When complete, click OK, and then click Close."

[shadowfield]

NTFS permissions stack with share permissions, so if NTFS permissions are super strict, it will effect share permissions.

So what im saying is that you need to change the NTFS permissions along with share permissions.

[Judas]

Can i get a walkthrough for that?

btw.. UPnP is enabled across everything

[shadowfield]

I'm not using Vista right now, so all I can do is explain how to do it in that, so hopefully that will be good enough.

Its basically just like how you set share permissions, but instead of going to the sharing tab, you will want to go to the Security tab and set permissions. If its not there, it might be set to simple sharing like in XP, the option to turn that off is in folder properties.

Remember, Deny over rules all other permissions, so its best not to set any at all for a group instead of Deny.

Also, I just read that the Everyone group does not include Anonymous Logon in XP, so I bet its safe to say that its the same in Vista. So try and add Anonymous Logon to the share/ntfs permissions also.

[Judas]

hmmm... didn't appear to work.. but i could have screwed something up....

[HTP]

I had the same exact problem. Try taking the share off the re share the drive but let windows name it in my instance it was K (previously i had named it Software) give everyone full control and it should work for you. hope this helps.

[Judas]

tried that.. no go.....

[IvanV]

Is it too important to have password protected sharing off? Because I have it on, and I'm doing more or less the same things you do (I shared an entire partition, gave everyone full control, and told the firewall not to protect the LAN connection), and it works. I log on to the Vista PC with my Vista username and password, and I see the drive and I can access the files.

Originally Posted by Monkeyboy

...
For computers running Windows Vista that are members of a workgroup, these adminstrative shares exist but are blocked for network access for security reasons.
...

So how does one use them?! And why arent they showing up when I click "Advanced sharing"?