File sharing across network

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kim K
  • Start date Start date
K

Kim K

I want to be able to share my drives and folder across
the netowrk - they do NOT reside in the shared folder on
the C drive nor do I want them there. I want to be able
to password protect them so that only I can access them
from the other computers in the building. Win98 allows
this read or write or depends on password, I would like
to do that same in XP Pro but can only find that I can do
this on local machine depending on the users set up and
defined, but I can not find out how this issue can be
done or used across the netowrk by another machine like I
have done in 98. Any help is appreciated.
 
File sharing in XP (and all NT-based operating systems) is fundamentally
different. You don't just set up a single password for a share. Instead, you
select the users that you want to have access to it. Once you do this, then
that user can always access this.

Now, this works much better on a domain, where your user name applies to
every other machine in the domain. Otherwise, you have to set up a user
account on every machine which has the same user name and password in order
for the authentication to work.

Fouling the whole mess up is the fact that this was deemed too complicated
for the average home user, so they devised the Simple File Sharing scheme.
What this does is authenticate everybody as Guest, and then allow the Guest
account access to this folder. (It uses the same mechanisms of allowing a
user, it just fiddles with who the user is.) You have to turn this off
(under Advanced Folder Options) if you want to specify users, and if you are
using Home Edition you don't have a choice - you only get simple file
sharing.
 
Chris,

Yes I can turn simple sharing off and I see that I can
specify users, but only on the local machine, if I am
missing something about adding a user on one machine to
access a folder on another machine I cna not find it.
This is where I need help. Say for instance: I am on my
husbands machine and I want to access some personal data
on a drive on my machine. We are all on the same network
and with simple sharing, I can just log on, but personal
data that I do not want others to be able to access
without protection I need to set up something that is
password protected.

Is this possible or am I looking at third party software
such as Folderguard?

Thanks,
Kim
 
With simple sharing turned off, you can specify which users can see your
data, and only those users will have access. So, say that you have machine 1
and machine 2. Here is what you do:

On machine 1, you have the file that you want to share. Set up the share,
and only allow your user account to have access.
On machine 2, make sure you have a user account with the SAME name and
password as the one you used on machine 1
Attempt to connect to the share - you should be able to
Now, on machine 2, log in as your husband
You should no longer be able to access that shared drive

--
Chris Jackson
Software Engineer
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP Associate Expert
--
 
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