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Can't access files on Win XP Workgroup

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7 replies

by lt1transamgt 1 view

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I have a home network of 2 Windows XP Professional computers. They are connected through a Linksys Cable/DSL router. The 2 computers are able to see each other but I am not able to access the files on either computer from the other. I receive the message "\\Computername is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions. Logon failure: the user has not been granted the requested logon type at this computer."

Please let me know what I can try.
Thank you.

7 replies

by w2ktechman

I have seen this a few times. Netgear and linksys say to install netbeui protocol on both systems. I dont like their solution though.

First make sure that file and print sharing is installed on both systems. Make sure that both systems are in the same workgroup name. Create a share on each system and add permissions.

by joseph moore

To me, it sounds like you are logged into both XP computers with different user name accounts. For example, maybe you are logged into the 1st XP box as BOB, and as TOM on the 2nd XP box.
When you try and go to \\XP2 from \\XP1, your user account (BOB) is sent to \\XP2 for authentication, but \\XP2 does not have a user name of BOB, and the authentication will fail.
This is easy to fix. And there are a few options. The easy way is to make a user account of both machines with the same user name AND password (call it JIM with a password of "password"). Log into BOTH machines with that username. Give this JIM account appropriate rights on both machines.
THEN try and go to \\XP2 from \\XP1 while logged in as this new account. This way, the user account of JIM will be passed from one machine to another, and it will match up on the target machine, with the correct password and permissions, and you will be in!
Another way (the way I actually would do it, but I am a Windows geek like this!) is to log into each machine with whatever account you like, and MANUALLY authenticate to the target machine BEFORE trying to connect to access a shared folder or shared printer or whatever.
You can manually authenticate using the NET USE command from the Command Prompt, hitting the IPC$ on the target system, and specifying the user credentials to do this....
If NONE of that made any sense, then go with the first option! If it did sound slightly familiar, let me know and I can explain in more detail!
hope this helps

by chris910

The simplest solution might be to make sure that the account you are trying to log in as has a password associated with it. XP does not allow sharing if the login password is NUL

by lt1transamgt

Thank you so much for the help. The password was the problem because it was nul. I would never have thought about that. This is such a huge help!

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