Problem Sharing Folders Between Workgroup PC's

[PowerEngineer]

I have a XP Pro and W2K Pro connected to a router. The two share the same workgroup name, and I've set up the same user accounts on both machines. Both machines are running Norton Internet Security but I've set up the local IP range as trusted.

From the W2K Pro machine, I can see the XP Pro machine in "Computers Near Me". I can access the SharedDoc folder on the XP Pro machine. I can also print on the printer attached to the XP Pro machine.

On the XP Pro machine, I've modified the security setting for each user's "My Documents" folders so that only they can access it. For example, the only listed "Group or user names" are: Administrators (XPPRO\administrators), CREATOR OWNER, Paul (XPPRO\Paul), and SYSTEM. I have enabled sharing on each of these folders too.

I was hoping that a user on the W2K Pro machine would be able to access their "My Documents" folder on the XP Pro machine over the network, but it doesn't allow it. I'm guessing that "Paul (XPPRO\Paul)" is not seen as a match for "Paul (W2KPRO\Paul)".

Is there a way to get around this problem?

Thanks!

P.S. -- I know that these kinds of questions come up all the time, but I didn't find an answer in any of the posts I read. Sorry if this is a repost.

 

[JackMDS]

May be this can Help: Sharing Disk Drives Between Co...rs on Windows Network.

:sun:

 

[PowerEngineer]

Originally posted by: JackMDS
May be this can Help: Sharing Disk Drives Between Co...rs on Windows Network.

:sun:

Thanks Jack!

I'd picked up this link from one of your earlier posts, but didn't see anything that really helped me. Maybe I'm missing something.

I'm thinking that giving access to "EVERYONE" or "USERS" might not be restricted to those of the local machine, while user account names may be. I'd like to have identical user account names on the two computers really be accepted as matching the security restrictions on the folders on either machine.

Still stumped...

 

[JackMDS]

Try this:

http://www.wown.info/articles_tutorials/wxppfsec.html

http://www.wown.info/articles_tutorials/w2kuser.html

:sun:

 

[PowerEngineer]

After some googling, I've found several threads about this same question. It appears that you need a domain to really have the user names on two computers be identical as far as folder sharing permissions go.

Even if you have identical user names on two workgroup computers, it seems they are unavoidably prefixed with the computer name of each computer. As "Username 1" on Computer A, you can get access to shared folders with "EVERYONE" permissions on Computer B (assuming there is a Username 1 with the same password on Computer B). But you can't get access as "Username 1" on Computer A to a shared folder on Computer B with just a "Username 1" permission.

I'd be really happy to find that I'm wrong about this.

I am also under the impression that I would need to have a PC running Windows Server in order to establish a domain.

Bummer!