I have a network of 3 XP machines, one Windows Home Server and one Vista
Ultimate machine. All of my machines are set up on the same workgroup and
most things work fine. For some reason though, I am unable to access files
in the Vista Public tree from one of my XP machines. I can see the machine
but cannot get to the folders. The Guest account is enabled but it doesn't
work from one machine.

How do I go about resolving this?

Thank you.

Karen wrote:
I have a network of 3 XP machines, one Windows Home Server and one Vista
Ultimate machine. All of my machines are set up on the same workgroup and
most things work fine. For some reason though, I am unable to access files
in the Vista Public tree from one of my XP machines. I can see the machine
but cannot get to the folders. The Guest account is enabled but it doesn't
work from one machine.

What does "cannot get to the folders" mean? Do you get an error message,
perhaps "Access Denied"? If yes, then please quote the exact text of the
message.

Guest should not need to be enabled. You probably don't have matching
user accounts/passwords and perhaps the Simple File Sharing setting is
incorrect on the one XP box. Since you didn't give details, that's my
guess. See below for possible solution:

A. Create matching user accounts and passwords on all machines. You do
not need to be logged into the same account on all machines and the
passwords assigned to each user account can be different; the
accounts/passwords just need to exist and match on all machines. If you
wish a machine to boot directly to the Desktop (into one particular
user's account) for convenience, you can do this. The instructions at
this link work for both XP and Vista:

Configure Windows to Automatically Login (MVP Ramesh) -
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/Autologon.htm

B. If one or more of the computers is XP Pro or Media Center:

1. If you need Pro's ability to set fine-grained permissions, turn off
Simple File Sharing (Folder OptionsView tab) and create identical user
accounts/passwords on all computers.

2. If you don't care about using Pro's advanced features, leave the
Simple File Sharing enabled. Simple File Sharing means that Guest
(network) is enabled. This means that anyone without a user account on
the target system can use its resources. This is a security hole but
only you can decide if it matters in your situation.


Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP