Network problem connecting to Vista

[Guest Mary]

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]

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