I am able to access from my Vista laptop the shared files on the XP pc.
However, the opposite does not work. I have read the MS tutorial on file and
printer sharing and everything checks. Although I see the name of my laptop
displayed in My Network PLaces of my XP, when I click on it I get an access
denied message suggesting that I may not have permission to access this
network resource.
Very frustrating. Any help would be appreciated.

NickR wrote:

I am able to access from my Vista laptop the shared files on the XP pc.
However, the opposite does not work. I have read the MS tutorial on file
and printer sharing and everything checks. Although I see the name of my
laptop displayed in My Network PLaces of my XP, when I click on it I get
an access denied message suggesting that I may not have permission to
access this network resource.
Very frustrating. Any help would be appreciated.

It sounds as though you may have a misconfigured firewall and/or missing
user accounts on the Vista laptop. See below:

Problems sharing files between computers on a network are generally caused
by 1) a misconfigured firewall; or 2) inadvertently running two firewalls
such as the built-in Windows Firewall and a third-party firewall; and/or 3)
not having identical user accounts and passwords on all Workgroup machines;
4) trying to create shares where the operating system does not permit it.

A. Configure firewalls on all machines to allow the Local Area Network (LAN)
traffic as trusted. With Windows Firewall, this means allowing File/Printer
Sharing on the Exceptions tab. Normally running the Network Setup Wizard on
XP will take care of this for those machines.The only "gotcha" is that this
will turn on the XPSP2 Windows Firewall. If you aren't running a
third-party firewall or have an antivirus with "Internet Worm
Protection" (like Norton 2006/07) which acts as a firewall, then you're
fine. With third-party firewalls, I usually configure the LAN allowance
with an IP range. Ex. would be 192.168.1.0-192.168.1.254. Obviously you
would substitute your correct subnet. Do not run more than one firewall.

B. For ease of organization, put all computers in the same Workgroup. This
is done from the System applet in Control Panel, Computer Name tab.

C. 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

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