can't access other PCs on the LAN, get user and password prompt

4 Oct 2006 9:02 PM

Stephan Laska

Hi all,

My computer is on a LAN, which has a server connection to the internet.
I get out to the internet, print to network printers,
and can access files / folders on the server.
I can see the other machines on the LAN with network places.
When I try to access the shared folders of the WINXP machines on the LAN
from this machine, I get the user and password popup.
I don't get the popup when I access a WIN98SE machine.
None of the other PCs on the lan exhibit this behavior.
Other PCs on this LAN can see my shared folders, and the folders of the
other PCs
without this user / password popup.
When I log on to the network from another machine with my username /
password
I do not have this problem and can access the shared folders without a
problem.

does anyone have any ideas of why this is happening?

Thanx
Stephan

4 Oct 2006 10:42 PM

Ian

There are a number of factors here:

1. Win9x/Me machines have share-level security. Shared folders on these
either do have a password allowing (readonly or write) access, or do not. The
password for any given shared folder is the same for all users.

2. Win2000/XP machines have user-level security. This means that to access a
share, a valid user/password combination must be supplied. This same user and
password must exist on the host-computer sharing the folder, and must be
granted rights to the share. Thus, different usernames will require distinct
passwords. So, the ability to access shares may differ depending on the
username you log-on to your own computer with.

3. XP may have Guest networking enabled (sometimes called Simple Sharing)
In this case, typically no password is required to access shares and there is
no actual security. This may be the case on your computer. if everyone can
access it.

4. A further consideration is that the other computers may be members of a
domain, and perhaps yours is not. In this case you cannot access the shares
on the domain-member computers unless you authenticate to the domain (as
opposed to authenticating to the host computer) To do so you supply a
username of the form 'domainname\username'

Hope this helps, it's a fairly complex subject which can even have the gurus
scratching their heads occasionally!

-------------------------------

An alternative approach to XP network logon - http://mylogon.net

5 Oct 2006 12:45 PM

Stephan Laska

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"Ian" <I**@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:316206EF-18EF-4CDB-8C39-B688B2264CB1@microsoft.com...
>
> There are a number of factors here:
>

> 2. Win2000/XP machines have user-level security. This means that to access
> a
> share, a valid user/password combination must be supplied. This same user
> and
> password must exist on the host-computer sharing the folder, and must be
> granted rights to the share. Thus, different usernames will require
> distinct
> passwords. So, the ability to access shares may differ depending on the
> username you log-on to your own computer with.

not a factor in this case. logging onto a differentt machine using the same
user/password
allowed me to access the various other PCs on the LAN

> 3. XP may have Guest networking enabled (sometimes called Simple Sharing)
> In this case, typically no password is required to access shares and there
> is
> no actual security. This may be the case on your computer. if everyone can
> access it.

yes, it is like that. it is the same with the other machines.

> 4. A further consideration is that the other computers may be members of a
> domain, and perhaps yours is not. In this case you cannot access the
> shares
> on the domain-member computers unless you authenticate to the domain (as
> opposed to authenticating to the host computer) To do so you supply a
> username of the form 'domainname\username'

that is not happpening here.

> Hope this helps, it's a fairly complex subject which can even have the
> gurus
> scratching their heads occasionally!

thanks for trying.

Show quoteHide quote

> An alternative approach to XP network logon - http://mylogon.net
>
>