One of my friends has a media sharing problem with an XP Home (sp3) MCE
2005, WMP 11 desktop. I've tried to help him by setting up consistent user
accounts (passworded) but it doesn't seem to solve the problem. In a
nutshell, his network shows his desktop as both a computer and a media
device and it seems he has more shares than I think is wise -- he has disks,
folders, files, all marked as share with full control permissions to
everyone. He also has tried to solve his problem by consolidating media,
but put it all in the "all users" tree instead of with a single user. In
short, I'm not sure what he has shared and where he has it.

As a result his music and pix seem to share on the network ok, but he gets
duplicate entries in wmp and conflicts when trying to stream video on his
network. Maybe this last problem is because of multiple shared videos with
the same name maybe in multiple locations (or as multiple users)?

So here are my two questions. First, is there an easy way I can help him
turn off all sharing and start over? And second, does it matter that his
desktop shows up as a media device AND as a computer? If so, how can he fix
that problem?

rak wrote:

One of my friends has a media sharing problem with an XP Home (sp3) MCE
2005, WMP 11 desktop. I've tried to help him by setting up consistent
user
accounts (passworded) but it doesn't seem to solve the problem. In a
nutshell, his network shows his desktop as both a computer and a media
device and it seems he has more shares than I think is wise -- he has
disks, folders, files, all marked as share with full control permissions
to
everyone. He also has tried to solve his problem by consolidating media,
but put it all in the "all users" tree instead of with a single user. In
short, I'm not sure what he has shared and where he has it.

As a result his music and pix seem to share on the network ok, but he gets
duplicate entries in wmp and conflicts when trying to stream video on his
network. Maybe this last problem is because of multiple shared videos
with the same name maybe in multiple locations (or as multiple users)?

So here are my two questions. First, is there an easy way I can help him
turn off all sharing and start over? And second, does it matter that his
desktop shows up as a media device AND as a computer? If so, how can he
fix that problem?

I'm a bit confused because there is no such thing as an XP Home MCE 2005
operating system. Unless you mean your friend has an XP Home machine and an
XP Media Center Edition machine, and they are networked with a Vista
machine (since you are posting in a Vista newsgroup).

In any case, have your friend go to the Windows Firewall applet in Control
Panel and uncheck "File and Printer Sharing". Reboot.

I don't have an answer for your last question. There is a dedicated
newsgroup for XP Media Center and if you don't get an answer here you might
try there.

microsoft.public.windowsxp.mediacenter

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

Thanks Malke. My apologies -- missed the vista only part of this newsgroup.
He is running 32 bit XP MCE 2005 SP3 on a desktop. Although it probably
doesn't matter, he is networked to a 32 bit Vista laptop. Haven't played
with the laptop, but he tells me it is a Vista Home Premium (maybe SP1,
maybe SP2). He administers the network using Linksys Easy Link Advisor on
that laptop. I'll suggest to him that he uncheck file and printer sharing
and reboot. I'll also try the Media Center Newsgroup.

In the meantime, I have one question regarding your suggestion. On the off
chance it's the same in Vista and MCE, once he rechecks file and printer
sharing after the reboot, will the old permissions come back or can he
actually start from scratch?

"Malke" wrote in message
...
rak wrote:

One of my friends has a media sharing problem with an XP Home (sp3) MCE
2005, WMP 11 desktop. I've tried to help him by setting up consistent
user
accounts (passworded) but it doesn't seem to solve the problem. In a
nutshell, his network shows his desktop as both a computer and a media
device and it seems he has more shares than I think is wise -- he has
disks, folders, files, all marked as share with full control permissions
to
everyone. He also has tried to solve his problem by consolidating media,
but put it all in the "all users" tree instead of with a single user. In
short, I'm not sure what he has shared and where he has it.

As a result his music and pix seem to share on the network ok, but he
gets
duplicate entries in wmp and conflicts when trying to stream video on his
network. Maybe this last problem is because of multiple shared videos
with the same name maybe in multiple locations (or as multiple users)?

So here are my two questions. First, is there an easy way I can help him
turn off all sharing and start over? And second, does it matter that his
desktop shows up as a media device AND as a computer? If so, how can he
fix that problem?

I'm a bit confused because there is no such thing as an XP Home MCE 2005
operating system. Unless you mean your friend has an XP Home machine and
an
XP Media Center Edition machine, and they are networked with a Vista
machine (since you are posting in a Vista newsgroup).

In any case, have your friend go to the Windows Firewall applet in Control
Panel and uncheck "File and Printer Sharing". Reboot.

I don't have an answer for your last question. There is a dedicated
newsgroup for XP Media Center and if you don't get an answer here you
might
try there.

microsoft.public.windowsxp.mediacenter

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

rak wrote:

Thanks Malke. My apologies -- missed the vista only part of this
newsgroup.
He is running 32 bit XP MCE 2005 SP3 on a desktop. Although it probably
doesn't matter, he is networked to a 32 bit Vista laptop. Haven't played
with the laptop, but he tells me it is a Vista Home Premium (maybe SP1,
maybe SP2). He administers the network using Linksys Easy Link Advisor on
that laptop. I'll suggest to him that he uncheck file and printer sharing
and reboot. I'll also try the Media Center Newsgroup.

In the meantime, I have one question regarding your suggestion. On the
off chance it's the same in Vista and MCE, once he rechecks file and
printer sharing after the reboot, will the old permissions come back or
can he actually start from scratch?

IIRC, he would need to start from scratch again - setting up the network and
recreating the shares. Here is my usual network troubleshooter information
just in case you need it:

=====
Here are general network troubleshooting steps. Not everything may be
applicable to your situation, so just take the bits that are. It may look
daunting, but if you follow the steps at the links and suggestions below
systematically and calmly, you will have no difficulty in setting up your
sharing.

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:

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

Vista - Start OrbSearch boxtype: netplwiz [enter]
Click on Continue (or supply an administrator's password) when prompted by
UAC

Uncheck the option "Users must enter a user name and password to use this
computer". Select a user account to automatically log on by clicking on the
desired account to highlight it and then hit OK. Enter the correct password
for that user account (if there is one) when prompted. Leave it blank if
there is no password (null).

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.

F. After you have file sharing working (and have tested this by exchanging a
file between all machines), if you want to share a printer connected
locally to one of your computers, share it out from that machine. Then go
to the printer mftr.'s website and download the latest drivers for the
correct operating system(s). Install them on the target machine(s). The
printer should be seen during the installation routine. If it is not,
install the drivers and then use the Add Printer Wizard. In some instances,
certain printers need to be installed as Local printers but that is outside
of this response.
===

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

Thanks again. Looks like I have some hand holding to do. Oh well......

"Malke" wrote in message
...
rak wrote:

Thanks Malke. My apologies -- missed the vista only part of this
newsgroup.
He is running 32 bit XP MCE 2005 SP3 on a desktop. Although it probably
doesn't matter, he is networked to a 32 bit Vista laptop. Haven't played
with the laptop, but he tells me it is a Vista Home Premium (maybe SP1,
maybe SP2). He administers the network using Linksys Easy Link Advisor
on
that laptop. I'll suggest to him that he uncheck file and printer
sharing
and reboot. I'll also try the Media Center Newsgroup.

In the meantime, I have one question regarding your suggestion. On the
off chance it's the same in Vista and MCE, once he rechecks file and
printer sharing after the reboot, will the old permissions come back or
can he actually start from scratch?

IIRC, he would need to start from scratch again - setting up the network
and
recreating the shares. Here is my usual network troubleshooter information
just in case you need it:

=====
Here are general network troubleshooting steps. Not everything may be
applicable to your situation, so just take the bits that are. It may look
daunting, but if you follow the steps at the links and suggestions below
systematically and calmly, you will have no difficulty in setting up your
sharing.

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:

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

Vista - Start OrbSearch boxtype: netplwiz [enter]
Click on Continue (or supply an administrator's password) when prompted by
UAC

Uncheck the option "Users must enter a user name and password to use this
computer". Select a user account to automatically log on by clicking on
the
desired account to highlight it and then hit OK. Enter the correct
password
for that user account (if there is one) when prompted. Leave it blank if
there is no password (null).

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.

F. After you have file sharing working (and have tested this by exchanging
a
file between all machines), if you want to share a printer connected
locally to one of your computers, share it out from that machine. Then go
to the printer mftr.'s website and download the latest drivers for the
correct operating system(s). Install them on the target machine(s). The
printer should be seen during the installation routine. If it is not,
install the drivers and then use the Add Printer Wizard. In some
instances,
certain printers need to be installed as Local printers but that is
outside
of this response.
===

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