File Sharing with 98se/Win2k/XP Home

[TechBoyJK]

Whenever I put an NTFS system on a mainly FAT32 network and setup file sharing, the NTFS system can always take files from the FAT32 systems but the FAT32 systems can never get access to take files from the NTFS system.

I understand why and that's fine, because I just setup FTP on the NTFS system if I need it to store network files.

However, I just got an HP Athlon XP 1600 w/17" Monitor (only $525) and it has Windows XP Home on it. I setup networking and put everyone in the same workgroup. When I go to My Network Places, it shows all of the shares I have available, which is good. But when I go to access a share on a FAT32 system, it prompts me for a username and password. This would be fine except it won't let me fill in the username part, which is set to //computername/guest (aka guest account).

How do I get it to allow me to enter a username and password? Or what else can I do to get this machine so it can gain access to the FAT32 machines.

Thanks!

 

[PushHands]

You need to set up a user account on the machine that you're trying to access.

 

[sechs]

The problem here is two-fold. First, you haven't read the documentation and don't know how file sharing is different with NT-based OSes (such as Windows 2000 and Windows XP). Second, you've confused these differences causing your sharing problems with the file systems which the OS are running (NTFS and FAT32).

For any system running an NT OS, the users trying to access shares need rights. By turning on the guest account, anyone can get to the computer and see what it shares. It is superior, however, for each user to have a matching account on the computer. To access files on NTFS, these users also need to have rights. So, a user trying to access a file needs both an account granting access to the computer and rights in file system granting access to the files themselves.

Shares on Windows 9x systems do not have this security. You can only set a password, which is not specific to a user.

In order to access a properly set up share on an NT computer, the user of another NT computer simply needs to enter their assigned username and password on the shared computer (if their login accounts match, this is automatically passed without further ado); if the guest account is turned on, then entry of identifying information is unnecessary. To access a share on a Win9x computer, the user needs only to enter the password, if necessary.

To access shares on an NT computer, the user of a Win9x computer must login to that computer with the appropriate username and password, or they will not be able to access the computer, unless the guest account is turned on.

Please remember, you share data, not file systems!