Network connection problem from W98SE 3

[koala15]

Hi Experts,

Have WinXp:Home machine connected to internet (Dial-up) and also a networked Win98SE machine.

Have set the workgroup name to "WORKGROUP" on both.

From XP, I can see both machines and their shares.

On the 98 machine, Network Neighbourhood shows both PC's but when I click on the XP machine name I get a message "You do not have permission to access this network resource" (or similar words).

There are shares on both PC's.

I am logged on to the W98 PC with a user and P/W, and that username and P/W are the same on the XP box, as a System Administrator.

(I intend to remove that "administrator privilege" after the netorking is fixed.)

Please note: the NIC was installed (in-built) by HP on the XP box.

Assistance would be very much appreciated.

Thanks ...... Greg.

"Life is full of learning, and then there is wisdom"

 

[Jump1ng]

I have found file sharing on XP being very annoying and a tedious job...I never seem to get it working properly and end up getting files across using different methods.

For information about XP file sharing look on this page from MS.
How to configure file sharing in Windows XP
Hopefully it will guide you to the right path

 

[bcastner]

Jump1ng is referring to the "Network Consultant Employment Act of 1998" otherwise known as XP.

Honestly XP did a good job of a difficult process: networking.

koala15, see if there is any help in this thread: thread779-796583

 

[koala15]

Jump1ng and bcastner,

Thank you: I am under a bit of stress to get this working but your humour (namely ".....Network Consultant Employment Act of 1998...") was fantastic he he he!! Thanks.

Anyway, thanks for the help I will try both suggestions and re-post.

Cheers.

"Life is full of learning, and then there is wisdom"

 

[koala15]

An investigation of Jump1ng's pointer led me to this statement by MS:

"Note that on Windows XP Professional computers that are not joined to a domain with simple file sharing enabled and on Windows XP Home Edition computers, all users are authenticated as guests."

Which would indicate (obviously) that the guest account should be enabled .... but it is disabled by default, I will have to check that tomorrow.


"Life is full of learning, and then there is wisdom"

 

[bcastner]

The subtle thing is that the Guest Group is enabled, and for simple file sharing enabled that is how authentication is done. By the Group.

It matters little if the actual "Guest" account is enabled. You will see thousands of posts suggesting this is necessary. This is a local user account, and not used for authentication by a remote user. What matters in P2P is that the Guest Group is active.

If you share a resource, it is done generally for Group Everyone, which includes Group Guest, other Groups and others that you list as local users. Now lets say you turn off simple file sharing. By doing so you turn off authentication for Groups. At that point you better synchronize all usernames and passwords between your workgroup computers. You could create, and add, a new group for authentication in the alternative. The default groups will not help workgroup situations. XP will expect in this instance a name server, or DNS, or a local user account.

Darn I really need to write two FAQs: Simple File Sharing enabled, Simple File Sharing disabled. The wonderful Steve Winograd did this earlier:

Simple File Sharing - Enabled

http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/xp/filesharing.htm

Simple File Sharing - Disabled

http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/xp_filesharing/index.htm

And these are excellent step-by-step guides. I just am not sure they show the real guts of the NT authentication model, how it differes from Win9x, and why it can at times trip you up.

 

[koala15]

Bill, Thank you. Most informative.

Towards the end of the following article

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=304040

there are the following two statements:

1) Remote users always authenticate as the Guest account.

2) Remote users cannot authenticate by using an account that has a blank password. This authentication is configured separately.


Do these statements imply that the Guest account must have a password that a) is not blank and b) must match that password of the Win98 logged-on user irrespective of the name of the logged-on user?

Also, you made the statement in your latest post that "...What matters in P2P is that the Guest Group is active." In XP Home how do I determine if that group is active? It is easy in W2K or XP Pro, but in XP Home????????

Thanks and Cheers.

Greg.


"Life is full of learning, and then there is wisdom"

 

[bcastner]

koloa15 (Greg),

Thank you for actually reading the links above, and you raise two important questions:

Q1: Remote users always authenticate as the Guest account.

With Simple File Sharing enabled they authenticate as a member of the Group Guest, not as user Guest. You can disable the local user account Guest. Microsoft itself gets this wrong a lot; for example:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;300489

The nicest thing that can be said about this article is that it is right enough in general to be just wrong about any particular. (This KB they are going to allow me to rewrite.)

Which leads to your second question:
Q2. Remote users cannot authenticate by using an account that has a blank password. This authentication is configured separately.

This is not strictly true either. But XP hates blank or empty passwords. Your life will become much easier if you add passwords for all users. You can set the workstations to autologon with a password etc. if you really hate them, but use them.

Having done that rant, see the following as to how to use blank or empty passwords in a workgroup: thread779-796583

And I want to thank you for your questions. The gist of both questions I asked in a private forum for MVPs. It led to incredible arguments, and with the heat a lot of light for me. I hope the above shines some light on the Guest issue, and blank passwords, as well.

Best wishes,
Bill Castner

 

[koala15]

Bill, Thanks.

One question I don't think you answered was how do I ensure that (as you wrote) ".... The subtle thing is that the Guest Group is enabled, and for simple file sharing enabled that is how authentication is done. By the Group."

How (within XP:Home) do I determine the status of the Guest Group?

Also (maybe I am just a little slow today), if the user is logged on to the W98 PC as say "Donald" with a P/W of "Duck", should the Guest A/C on XP have the same P/W or can the Guest A/C have any P/W, or even be turned off?

I have been around MS products for a long time, BUT MS could not have made Networking with XP:Home any more difficult even if they tried!!!! Whinge, Whinge.

Thanks .... Greg.

"Life is full of learning, and then there is wisdom"

 

[bcastner]

For Computer A, with username Donald, password Duck, make a new user on Computer B with username Donald, password Duck.

Replicate this to all computers, so that the users on Computer A with passwords, as users on Computer B, C .etc.

Question: "How (within XP:Home) do I determine the status of the Guest Group?"

I often get XP Home vs. XP Pro questions wrong, but I think this should work for Home: Start, Run, lusrmgr.msc
You can view, set or change the status of any user or Group. If Simple File Sharing is enabled (you have a choice under XP Pro, but not under XP Home) the Group Guest is enabled.

I hope this is enough to get your little network running. I would be happy to answer any other questions/problems you might experience.

Best wishes,
Bill Castner

 

[koala15]

Thanks Bill,

I will try that tomorrow.

A star for you ... with thanks.

"Life is full of learning, and then there is wisdom"

 

[linney]

Home only has the User Accounts Tool via the Control Panel.
There is also some access via the Start Run box and typing in Control UserPasswords2 .

Make sure any share on Home is ticked twice under Sharing, "Share this folder on the Network" and "Allow Network users to change my files". You also have access to the Security tab for your Home shared-folders via Safe Mode. Make sure the Everyone user has a suitable access permission.

When Bill writes his FAQs on Sharing and he comes to the part XP and 98, the suggested title might be along the lines of "How to share if it's Friday" and How to share if it's some other day". With that comment I'm out of here, but I will leave you with this for when all the problems are solved.

Cool Tip #2: Security Tab in Windows XP Home
thread779-685055

 

[Rick998]

We use and attach to shared resources (folders, printers, etc.) on Windows XP Pro PC's all the time from Windows 98 SE PC's. (All our XP Pro boxes have Simple File Sharing disabled.)

Try this on the Windows 98 PC:

1) Set primary logon to 'Windows logon', not 'Client for Microsoft Networks, on General tab of Network properties.
2) Use "Start > Find > Files & Folders > *.pwl".
3) Delete any Password List files it finds in 2 above.
4) Use "Start > Logoff ????" (whatever logon account was used).
5) At new logon prompt, use 'Administrator' (no quotes, capital A) as logon ID with null password.
6) Browse to XP box and attempt to connect.
7) At C$ challenge, use the Administrator password for the XP box.

If you can't connect then try disabling 'Simple File Sharing' on the XP box. If you still can't connect then consider changing the XP share permissions to include 'Everyone' (but this shouldn't be necessary).

If you still can't connect then this may be due to differences in networking capability between XP Pro and XP Home.

Hope this helps...

Rick

 

[koala15]

Hi all,

Just got back from trying to get this rotten thing to work.

I have tried all your suggestions (except for Rick998's post) especially Bill Castner's. Thanks Bill.

As they say in football - this is the state of play:

a) both PC's can Ping each other by both name and IP.

b) as you know, there is no option within "Folder Options" to turn off "Simple File Sharing" on XP:Home (not any way that I know of).

c) I created a new user account on 98SE with a password and created the same name account (with uppercase letters where necessary) and same password on XP:Home and I made that user a member of the Administrators group.

d) Logged onto 98SE with the account name from c).

e) On XP:Home in "Advanced TCP/IP Settings" I unticked the "Lookup LMHOSTS" box and selected "Enable NetBIOS over TCP/IP".

f) I booted XP:Home into Safe Mode and found that the Guest A/C has no password. I also discovered (please correct me if I am wrong) that XP:Home does not allow you to set a password for Guest A/C.

g) While in Safe Mode (where the security tab in Windows Explorer is available) I found that the "Shared Documents" folder has "Change" rights (but not "Full Control") for the "Everyone" group.

h) I also noticed that in the security tab (where it shows all the Group names in the top frame that there was no "Guests" group shown. The reason I mention this is that Bill Castner made reference to this group in an ealier post.
Is that fact that it is not shown significant (but note the next paragraph below)?

i) MS KB article 308007 has a list of networking troubleshooting tasks - I have done them all!! One item in that list is to execute a "net user guest" command. The result from that was unremarkable except for 1) "The account is active" and 2) "Local Group Memberships: *Guests" and "Global Group Memberships: *None".
A question: what does the asterisk (*) character in front of the word "Guests" mean, and is it significant?

j) I then booted XP:Home into ordinary (non-safe) mode.

k) From 98SE, Network Neighborhood shows the name of the XP:Home PC, but when you double click on the name the (same) error message occurs saying that you do not have permission to access this device.

l) Just looking back at my notes: when I logged on as guest, I received an error with respect to "nvcpl.dll" saying that "One or more arguments are invalid". I thought I would mention that in the interests of completeness.

Any comments and/or suggestions would be wonderful.

Thanks everyone.

Greg.

"Life is full of learning, and then there is wisdom"

 

[linney]

as you know, there is no option within "Folder Options" to turn off "Simple File Sharing" on XP:Home (not any way that I know of)."

This is available to some extent if you apply the Security tab fix that was mentioned in the link I supplied.

Passwords (the way they are constructed) can indeed cause problems with connection. I remember one instance occurring where a certain length of password failed but shortening it worked. There is also some anecdotal evidence that XP will not accept certain characters in a 98 password. Passwords are a 14 character maximum for Windows 95 and Windows 98.


When you discovered the permissions for Everyone in Home were for only "Change" under the Sharing tab (in Safe Mode, with the Networking option?) I assume it did allow you to increase them to "Full"? Also what were the permissions for the Everyone Group under the Security tab itself?

In Home there is no password for the guest account by default, but if you should want to set one you can (as an Administrator) via Control Userpasswords2 and the User Accounts (when the guest is added under "Users for this computer" and by making use of the "Reset Password" button.


The guest account may also be added to the "Group or user names" under the normal Security tab, via the Add button (by an Administrator). It then may (if that's what you wanted) be then given Full control of the folder or drive! Under normal circumstances however, the Guest has the same rights as a limited user. It is normally not shown unless it were purposely added. Guests have the same access as members of the Users group by default, except the Guest account is further restricted.


In the output of NET USER, net group precedes groups that include both users and groups with an asterisk (*).
See "Net group" in Help and Support program. Perhaps it has the same meaning for *guests and *none?

Any problem you had as a Guest with "nvcpl.dll" is possibly a restriction on the guest account in handling the Nvidia driver.

A lesson learned, whenever you change any setting with networking, always reboot to make sure it is loaded, even if you are not instructed to do so, before you dismiss it as a failure .

 

[koala15]

linney,

Thank you for your valuable recommendations.

I will try this Monday/Tuesday and respond.

I was getting so frustrated that I even considered doing a backup, partitioning the drive with PMagic and installing W2K on the blank partition.

Cheers ... Greg.

"Life is full of learning, and then there is wisdom"

 

[Ru55ell]

koala15,
Any news? I have a similar problem and am watching this thread. I have been told to reconfigure the service "computer browser" to Manual start. This prevents the XP box from trying to become the browser controller. That allowed my 98 machines to continue to share but I get the same error when I try to browse the XP home machine.

 

[koala15]

Ru55ell,

I created a new thread thread779-879665, have look.

In essence I got it to work by removing the dial-up adapter.

In that other thread J741's post of (i think) July 18 may give a clue.

I will watch both threads, please post you success or frustrations - maybe I can assist.

Good luck ... Greg.

"Life is full of learning, and then there is wisdom"

 

[Ru55ell]

Greg,
I removed the TCP/IP bindings from the Dial-up adapter to no avail. I am struggling with this because I setup my brother-in-laws’ a couple of years ago and had no trouble. His was set up for ICS and his XP Home box was the Internet gateway. This is different than what I was attempting to do. I did not want Internet connectivity at all on the XP Home machine but only wanted to share folders. I'm going to go home and setup ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) and make the new XP Home machine the host. I just want to see if I can get it to share folders between XP and 98SE. I’ll keep you posted…Russell

 

[koala15]

Russell,

Just as a test only, instead of just unbinding IP from DUN, try deleting DUN altogeter from the N/W completely. Then reboot and try again.

If you still get "No Joy" can you please post the exact error details from both machines.

Here to help. Good lock.

Greg.

"Life is full of learning, and then there is wisdom"