Need Help With User Perm and Locations in Advanced Folder Sharing XP Pro.

[zunebuggy]

I have a home network set up and I am trying to make things more secure.

I have a desktop that is running XP Pro (I know "why" right?). I have (4) 3TB external drives attached to it that I use to store files. Up until now I have been using the simple sharing for each of these drives so that I can access these files from other PCs, laptops, etc... I basically had it set up so everyone can view/change files.

I switched to the Advanced mode (unchecked 'Use simple file sharing') and I just want to make it so when users in my house want to map to these drives, they have to use a password and I have more control/security.

The XP Pro computer is named XYZ and here is what I am doing:

Click on 'New Share' (to replace the existing shares).
I give it a Share Name: 'Photos$'
and enter the Comment: Photos and Graphics
Click OK
I remove Everyone from Group or usernames (that is the point right?)
I click Add
In Locations, I only see XYZ, not the names of the PCs and laptops that are on my network.

I click on Advanced and then Find Now
I see only options (Administrator, users, etc..) for computer XYZ.

How do I get the users and Locations (other computer names) to show up?
Then when I get that PLEASE walk me through step by step as if this is my first time doing this (because it is) how to set the user and permissions.

Specifically, I have laptop named ABC and on there I have user Administrator and Bob.

I want to be able to go to laptop ABC and map a new drive, set that mapped drive to reconnect on startup (for the laptop) and make it so the first time I map to it, I must enter my user name and password.

We have a temporary house guest that we do not want browsing through our files and photos. It would be great if my wife and I were the only one to have access to these drives. Nobody else has a need to access them.

I hope I am very clear with what I intend to do and I did print out and follow instructions on Microsoft.com on how to do Advanced Sharing instead of Simple but ran into the issues when I tried to set permissions for users on computer ABC. I really want it locked down to users and Administrators and no one else. Not even Guests.

Oh also laptop ABC uses Windows 7 but this was not an issue in Simple Sharing Mode.

Thank you,

[Robin Armstrong]

Hi.

I'm no longer supporting XP so I'm writing this from memory, if it's not perfect forgive me but it should be close enough for what you want.

Your PC and Laptop are not "domain" members so they do not share common usernames and passwords like they might do on a large business network. When you try to add a user to the share access permission you will only see the XYZ computer users listed because these are the only users the XYZ PC knows about. It would be a hazard to allow a PC to lift the username and password list from another PC so its like this by design. To share the folder with another user who is external to the PC is easy enough, just create a user account on your PC with the same name and password as the user wanting to connect. An example would be if your laptop user logs in as "bob" just create an account called bob on the Desktop PC and when you share select this local user from the list. When the user accesses the share Windows asks for the username and password to match the local account. The passwords should be set to the same thing on both laptop and desktop. If you wish to use blank passwords you will have to open secedit on the PC with the shares and find the option to disable "restrict blank passwords to console login only" (you can google this for more details). I'd also advise you to always use Advanced Sharing Permissions when setting shares, its the same thing with a different look but it will give you more granular control. You will also have to set the folders Security in the same way as you set the folders Sharing. Security is the permissions to the files and folders within the share, whereas share permissions only concern the actual share itself. It's like this to give us more flexibility. Just follow the same idea as above to set this. If you want to open the shares right up to your network just grant permissions and security to "everyone" and also "Anonymous". If you want to tie them down remove everything from the list then add in only the specific users you want. Don't use "Deny" as this always takes president in a conflict, i.e. a Deny will always superceed any other allow setting.

I'd probably advise against mapping a drive on login. If the target PC is not switched on or it's in power saving mode it could seriously slow down your login. If it were a NAS or hard drive shared from your Router that might be different. You can set Windows to automatically reconnect a mapped a drive on login through the GUI you use to connect in the first place. Alternatively you don't want persistent connections but you do want to make it easy for your users to connect just create a "batch file" for each users desktop. This is a simple script which is just a list of DOS commands. To do this open Notepad and type in

net use Z: \\xyz\sharename

Z: here is the example drive letter you want to use and \\xyz\sharename is the path to the share. Then choose "Save As" and enter "mapdrive.bat" as the filename and save it to your desktop. This batch file will map the drive any time it is double clicked. You can right click it and select "Edit" if you need to make changes.

It is also worth saying that when you connect to a mapped drive Windows will always attempt to authenticate the connection using the "currently logged in credentials". That means the username and password currently being used by this user. If the passwords are the same on both computers the authentication will pass and the drive will be mapped. If you want to always prompt the users for a password try having the same user setup on both computers but use different passwords. I'd advise against this however - the user has already logged in to Windows after all which is secure enough.

As I say I've not thought much about XP for a while. Post again if you're still having bother.