Won't allow me to share files- perplexed

Ok, hello everybody. here is my situation, it has me stumped.

-I used to be able to share folder over my network fine. I had my some folders shared so my little bro could get to them. One day I did a clean up, I unshared these folders by unclicking the boxes in the sharing and security tab. Pretty straightforward.

-From that date on, it no longer will allow me to share over my network. I do the normal thing and check the boxes under sharing and security On my computer. On my comp I can see these shared folders under My Network Places.

-On the other computers on my network these folders do not show up.

-If i go to "Show Workgroup computers", on one of the other computers on my network, my computer is there, if I then double click on my computer it wont alow acces and it gives a prompt that says: "\\[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 permissions. Access Denied " and 'Login failure user has not been granted access *blah* *blah*"

I did not change any permission, and infact i can not find where to change these "permissions." I have XP Pro and I have searched through the admin. tools and not found anything related. All comps are on the same workgroup, I can see and acces all other computers on my network. It is a wired network.

What could i be over looking?

Sorry for the long post, but I have been fooling aound with this for the past few days and it is perplexing me.

try start run \\IP address and see if you can bring up the machine that way...my first thought was they were not on the same domain but you said they are. Also make sure that the correct users have been granted permission to that resource share.

yeah, if your not using simple file sharing you have to specify the users and whatnot, also are there any firewalls running on the unacesble machine?

start run \\IP address did not work

I am using "file and printer sharing for Microsoft networks"

No firewall on this computer

CyberFed said:

Also make sure that the correct users have been granted permission to that resource share.

Click to expand...

How do I go about doing this. I cannot find for the life of me where to do this.

make sure that the server service is running also. To check that open the <<run>> window and type services.msc and make sure that the server service is running.

the server service is running.

ok so after looking into this some more i found this website:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/filesharing.mspx

I have XP Pro.
i dont have half of those tab under properties for the folder that i want to share. under security there is no subcatagory to select permissions.
heres what my Properties looks like:


im really perplexed.... this is the only thing that my baby has ever given me trouble for(FYI: its not the comp. in my sig, thats long gone, never updated the sig)

what you have there is called simple files sharing, you want to disable that by opening my computer window, selecting the upper tab "tools" then selecting --> folder options --> view --> and deselect the last option that says "Use Simple File sharing(recommended)" and hit apply. Most of the time you would want to use this setting because it gives you more advanced file sharing options. Anyways good luck.

ok so i did what you said, yay now i Can set permissions for the specific files, but I'm pretty sure that now it now. I think it has to be permissions to access the folder on my computer. or permission to access my computer, because the shared folder doesn't even show up.

after snooping further i found this:


in the admin.tool, underlocal security setting there is a policy called "Access this computer from the network" the security setting under this is blank. On another computer on my network, one this is able to share folders, This is not blank, it contains these properties: Administrators, ASPNET, Backup Operators, Everyone, Power Users, and Users.

If I click on "Add user or groups" there is an option to select a location. These are either <name of my computer> and <name of workgroup>.

I attempted to create the same users that are on the other computer on my network, but alas it will not allow me. I tried under both locations possible. i was unable to make any "users or groups" under the <name of workgroup> setting. The only user that I was as able to add was the name of other computers on my network. But after adding those when i clicked on "apply" it was unable to save these paramaters.

Even if i added "Everyone" under the <my computer name> location, it didn't do anything.

I am pretty sure that now the other computers are not being allowed to access my computer. this in turn in is keeping them from accessing the folders that i am sharing.
~ still perplexed

fake edit; sorry about the long posts

hey whats that noise? it sounded soemthing like this: "BUMP!"

Hello? *echo* anyone? even a clue?

do you have a firewall? like windows firewall or other ones? because firewalls can caus you this headache.

nope, no windows firewall, or 3rd party firewall.

I've always had issues with XP and sharing files. I always just install the NETBEUI drivers. That usually takes care of any problems I have with file sharing.