networking Windows XP Pro & Windows XP Home Edtion with DI-604 rou

4 Nov 2006 5:23 AM

Darrell

I have just installed Win XP Pro on my office computer.
It is connected to a D-Link DI-604 Ethernet Broadband Router to my kids
computer
which is running Win XP Home. I am having a hard time getting things sorted
out.

Also can I use Win XP Pro's Group Policy Editor to give me a way to have
some kind
of control what is being done on the computer running Win XP Home?
Any advice would be appreciated

4 Nov 2006 1:28 PM

Malke

Darrell wrote:

> I have just installed Win XP Pro on my office computer.
> It is connected to a D-Link DI-604 Ethernet Broadband Router to my
> kids computer
> which is running Win XP Home. I am having a hard time getting things
> sorted out.
>
> Also can I use Win XP Pro's Group Policy Editor to give me a way to
> have some kind
> of control what is being done on the computer running Win XP Home?
> Any advice would be appreciated

Can't get things sorted out to do what? File/printer sharing (since you
posted in a networking newsgroup)? See the cut/paste below:

Run the Network Setup Wizard on all computers, making sure to enable
File & Printer Sharing, and reboot. 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 2005/06) which acts as a firewall, then you're fine. If you have
third-party firewall software, configure it to allow the Local Area
Network traffic as trusted. I usually do this with my firewalls with an
IP range. Ex. would be 192.168.1.0-192.168.1.254. Obviously you would
substitute your correct subnet.

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

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

b. 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.

Then create shares as desired. XP Home does not permit sharing of users'
home directories (My Documents) or Program Files, but you can share
folders inside those directories. A better choice is to simply use the
Shared Documents folder.

If that doesn't work for you, here is an excellent network
troubleshooter by MVP Hans-Georg Michna. Take the time to go through it
and it will usually pinpoint the problem area(s) -
http://winhlp.com/wxnet.htm

As for your second question, setting group policies on the XP Pro
machine will only limit the XP Pro machine and do nothing on your kids'
XP Home box.

Since you didn't specify what sort of control you want on the kids'
machine, I can only suggest some sort of Net Nanny software (depends on
the kids' ages if this will be useful - I don't recommend that as a
real solution) or for more general control of XP Home machines use MVP
Doug Knox's Security Console or the MS Shared Computer Toolkit.

http://www.dougknox.com
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sharedaccess/default.mspx

Malke

--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User