Vista to Vista Networking

  • Thread starter Thread starter Nogginsaked
  • Start date Start date
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Nogginsaked

Two Vista computers are set with full permissions to access each other's
hard drives.
However no matter how sharing/permissions etc are set up Vista will not
allow the computers to access each other's files. There is no password or
other restrictions to access.
They are both in the same workgroup, the Vista firewall can be on or off
with the same problems.
I have followed all the MS Knowledgeless Base instructions for settings and
subsettings. My settings are identical to those shown in the Microsoft
instructions but access is still denied.
I do not want to use the "Public" folder, the computers need direct access
to each other's hard drives and all files on them without exception,
excluding what Microsoft considers the sacred and holy Windows folder.
I have learned to accept the time by your stopwatch slower than XP
performance of Vista but the networking problems seem hopeless.
 
Nogginsaked said:
Two Vista computers are set with full permissions to access each other's
hard drives.
However no matter how sharing/permissions etc are set up Vista will not
allow the computers to access each other's files. There is no password or
other restrictions to access.
They are both in the same workgroup, the Vista firewall can be on or off
with the same problems.
I have followed all the MS Knowledgeless Base instructions for settings
and subsettings. My settings are identical to those shown in the Microsoft
instructions but access is still denied.
I do not want to use the "Public" folder, the computers need direct access
to each other's hard drives and all files on them without exception,
excluding what Microsoft considers the sacred and holy Windows folder.
I have learned to accept the time by your stopwatch slower than XP
performance of Vista but the networking problems seem hopeless.
Click to expand...

Create identical user accounts AND passwords and you'll be able to share.
See 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 with "Internet Worm
Protection" (like Norton 2006/07) which acts as a firewall, 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. 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. The instructions at this link work for both XP and Vista:

Configure Windows to Automatically Login (MVP Ramesh) -
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/Autologon.htm

Malke
 
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