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Accessing local share offline

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9 replies

by rmalone

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I have a problem with XP Pro laptops when I install a licensing software that creates a share on the local machine. It works fine as long as connected to the domain. As soon as it is disconnected it will not allow access to the share. Is there a place in the security policy that one can change so it will have access to the local share when using the cached login? Also tried using a local account, still no access. This works fine on machines that are not part of a domain.

9 replies

by rmalone

It's our own licensing package for our software package. It has the ability to have floating licenses across the network. Therefor the share to access the license file. In this instance it is being licensed on an individual machine and the file is not needed across the network

by mfischer

I'm afraid that you can't do this. By definition when a computer is a member of a domain you can't access the computer outside of the domain context. I take it from your post that the machine is either a) unplugged physically from the network or b) the wireless connection isn't active. You can't access something over a network if that something isn't connected to that network.

by rmalone

Yes, the computer is disconnected from the network when this does not work. But the share is on the local machine, it is not somewhere out on the network. This works fine when the machine is not part of a domain. We are accessing the share through the unc path. //machine name/share name

by mfischer

That is exactly the point. If the laptop isn't connected to the network then the share can't be accessed either... it's network dependent.

by sysnetmgr

To confirm about the networking issue. You do not have to be logged into a domain to access a local share. However, both machines must be plugged into the network (or have wireless access to the network) and be powered on. The machine does not have to be logged in. You will be able to see the share using \\machine-id\sharename, but unless the security permissions are set correctly the person / machine accessing the share will not be able to see it. If you have everyone can read/execute that should do it.

by rmalone

Thanks for your answer. The issue is on the same machine, not one machine trying to access another machine's share. We have tried making sure all permissions are open on the share. Plus when it is plugged into the network it works.

by sysnetmgr

We find that with XP and 2000 Machines you must do everything logged in as local Administrator, that way Software, Printers etc will be available to all users of the machine. Also with XP you may need to check that the permissions of the Share includes everyone. We find this also solves a lot of problems when running on a Windows 2003 Server Domain as well.

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