Ian said:
I have a printer locally connected to a machine running Vista Home
Basic, and want to share the printer across the LAN via NETBEUI to a
number of machines running XP.
NETBEUI setup appeared straightforward -- I used the .inf and .sys files
that came with one of the XP systems, and configuring it was essentially
the same as in XP. I made sure the Vista Netgroup was the same as the XP
Netgroup.
On the Vista machine, I set the printer to be shared, then in "Network
and Sharing Center" I set up the sharing as follows:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Filesharing: On
Public Folder Sharing: On
Printer Sharing: On
Password Protected Sharing: Off
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When I click on "Show me all the shared network folders on this
computer" I can see the shared printer.
But when I click on "Show me all the files and folders I am sharing"
there are No Items displayed.
The net result is that none of the XP machines can see the share.
What am I missing?
Neither XP, Vista, nor Win7 supports NETBUI. I can't imagine why you are
using it. Remove it, switch to TCP/IP, follow the general networking
instructions below, and you will have no problems sharing your
files/printers.
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/library/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 Orb>Search box>type: 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 Options>View 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
