Nick Logan wrote:
<span style="color:blue">
> I don't understand what the problem is here. When I attempt to save a
> file
> from an xp machine to a vista I get "you don't have permissions". This is
> the biggest waste of time. I'm admin on both machines. I have admin
> permission on both machines. I've done all the tricks for permissions and
> ownership, etc. Why is this so difficult? Don't vista engineers test
> their
> stuff? Apparently not.
>
> Does anyone know a simple straight forward way to fix this? I really have
> better things to do than argue with a machine. I'm the admin. I should
> be able to do anything at anytime with that machine.</span>
Finished whinging now? Good. Now let's try and solve your problem. It sounds
like you haven't got network sharing set up properly. Since you're getting
an "access denied" type of error (and next time do try and quote the error
messages exactly; it makes helping you so much easier). Read through the
following troubleshooting steps patiently and systematically and you will
be sharing files very quickly. If you follow the suggestions, it should
take you approximately 5 minutes to share files between only two computers.
You do not need to be an engineer to do this, either.
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 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.
LOOK OUT FOR "HIDDEN" FIREWALLS SUCH AS ARE OFTEN USED IN VPNs.
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 THE
PASSWORDS, EVEN IF YOU ONLY CHOOSE 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
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.
Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
Don't Panic!