hey guys,

Much like everyone else, I'm having issues getting my vista/xp wireless
network going.

The routing of the network is like this:

Motorolla modem --- Netgear Wireless Router --- Hard wired into
Desktop running Windows XP Pro SP3 ---- Wireless to Vista Ultimate x32

In XP:
I ran the network wizard and chose option 2 (the residential gateway
one).
The workgroup name on both computers is the same.

In Vista:

-- File sharing is turned on
-- Network discovery is turned on
-- Password protection is turned off

The issue:

In XP I can see the "Users" folder but cannot access it.

In Vista I can't see the XP desktop in the network folder at all. The
only two things that show in the network are the laptop and the router.
Thats it.

Also, in the network map, nothing shows. Not the internet, not the
router, nor the laptop. Forget about the desktop.

Please help.

Waqar


--
mufakir
Posted via http://www.vistaheads.com

mufakir wrote:


hey guys,

Much like everyone else, I'm having issues getting my vista/xp wireless
network going.

The routing of the network is like this:

Motorolla modem --- Netgear Wireless Router --- Hard wired into
Desktop running Windows XP Pro SP3 ---- Wireless to Vista Ultimate x32

In XP:
I ran the network wizard and chose option 2 (the residential gateway
one).
The workgroup name on both computers is the same.

In Vista:

-- File sharing is turned on
-- Network discovery is turned on
-- Password protection is turned off

Turn password protection ON and see the detailed instructions below.

The issue:

In XP I can see the "Users" folder but cannot access it.

Probably because you haven't created matching user accounts and passwords.
See detailed instructions below.

In Vista I can't see the XP desktop in the network folder at all. The
only two things that show in the network are the laptop and the router.
Thats it.

Possibly a firewall misconfiguration. See below.

Also, in the network map, nothing shows. Not the internet, not the
router, nor the laptop. Forget about the desktop.

Excellent, thorough, yet easy to understand article about File/Printer
Sharing in Vista. Includes details about sharing printers as well as files
and folders:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/l.../bb727037.aspx

For XP, start by running the Network Setup Wizard on all machines (see
caveat in Item A below).

Problems sharing files between computers on a network are generally caused
by 1) a misconfigured firewall or overlooked firewall (including a stateful
firewall in a VPN); 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/security program with its own
firewall component, 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. Refer to any third party security program's Help or user forums for
how to properly configure its firewall. Do not run more than one firewall.
DO NOT TURN OFF FIREWALLS; CONFIGURE THEM CORRECTLY.

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. DO NOT NEGLECT TO CREATE
PASSWORDS, EVEN IF ONLY SIMPLE ONES. 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, turn off
Simple File Sharing (Folder OptionsView tab).

E. Create shares as desired. XP Home does not permit sharing of users' home
directories or Program Files, but you can share folders inside those
directories. A better choice is to simply use the Shared Documents folder.
See the first link above for details about Vista sharing.

Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/#FAQ

Thanks Malke!

How do I create matching user accounts though? I've no idea how thats
done. :/


--
mufakir
Posted via http://www.vistaheads.com

mufakir wrote:


Thanks Malke!

How do I create matching user accounts though? I've no idea how thats
done. :/

Go to each computer and make a note of all the user accounts on the system.

Examples:

XP - C:\Documents and Settings\john (no password)
XP - C:\Documents and Settings\mufakir (password: 1234)

Vista - C:\Users\Owner (no password)
Vista - C:\Users\mufakir (password 4566)

You can see that there are two user accounts and passwords that don't match,
so fix this by:

In XP - Control PanelUser Accounts
Create Owner and assign it the same password used in Vista. Change the
mufakir account's password to match the one on Vista (or vice versa).
Assign john a password.

In Vista - Control PanelUser Accounts
Create john and assign it the same password used in XP. The mufakir
account's password must match the one on XP. Assign Owner a password.

Note for Vista unrelated to networking - You should not be using an
administrative user account for daily work. Instead, create an
administrative account (call it something like "CompAdmin" or "Tech" or the
like) only there for elevation purposes. After you create "CompAdmin", log
into it and change your regular user account to Standard. Then log back
into your regular account.

So at the end of our example, you have user accounts on *both* systems as
follows:

john - password: somethinguseful
Owner - password: somethinguseful2
mufakir - password: somethinguseful3
CompAdmin - password: somethingstrong


Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/#FAQ

On Mar 20, 4:21*pm, Malke wrote:

Turn password protection ON and see the detailed instructions below.

The issue:

In XP I can see the "Users" folder but cannot access it.

Probably because you haven't created matching user accounts and passwords..
See detailed instructions below.


Why do you have to do this. Why won't turning off password protection
work?

According to MS TechNet it should work. Here's what it says:

"Disable password protected sharing

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."

George