Home network with XP Home and XP Pro

4 Sep 2006 12:26 AM

dmkhern

I have a wireless network at home. My host computer has Windows XP Home
Edition. I have two laptops, one with Home Edition and one with XP Pro. I am
able to easily set up for networking (file sharing, printing, etc.) with the
laptop that has the XP Home Edition using the Network Wizard but cannot set
up on my laptop with XP Pro on it even though I follow the same steps. Any
thoughts as to what I need to do?

4 Sep 2006 12:42 AM

Malke

dmkhern wrote:

> I have a wireless network at home. My host computer has Windows XP
> Home Edition. I have two laptops, one with Home Edition and one with
> XP Pro. I am able to easily set up for networking (file sharing,
> printing, etc.) with the laptop that has the XP Home Edition using the
> Network Wizard but cannot set up on my laptop with XP Pro on it even
> though I follow the same steps. Any thoughts as to what I need to do?

Run the Network Setup Wizard on both 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:

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

Malke

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