Guest Mary Posted July 29, 2008 Posted July 29, 2008 I have a laptop with XP connected to a printer. I have just bought a Vista PC. Both are wireless. TheXP laptop is configured for file and printer sharing. If I open Network in the Vista PC it shows the laptop. If I double click on the laptop I get a box asking for a user name and password. The XP laptop has no password that I know of. How can I access the laptop from the Vista PC? HELP...... ** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **
Guest Malke Posted July 30, 2008 Posted July 30, 2008 Re: Network problem connecting to Vista Mary wrote: > I have a laptop with XP connected to a printer. I have just bought a > Vista PC. Both are wireless. > > TheXP laptop is configured for file and printer sharing. > > If I open Network in the Vista PC it shows the laptop. If I double > click on the laptop I get a box asking for a user name and password. > > The XP laptop has no password that I know of. > > How can I access the laptop from the Vista PC? Create usernames and passwords on both machines that match. See below for details. 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 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 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. XP Home does not permit sharing of users' home directories or Program Files, but you can share folders inside those directories. A better choice is to simply use the Shared Documents folder. See the first link above for details about Vista sharing. Malke -- MS-MVP Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic! FAQ - http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/#FAQ
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