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ShareFilesPrintersInVista

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How to Share Files and Folder in Vista

the Main Difference in File and Printer Sharing in Windows Vista

• Windows Vista by default does not allow simple file sharing. Access to shared folders, including the public folder (if shared), requires a user name and password. Simple file sharing is enabled by default in Windows XP Home Edition.

Setting the Network Location Type

The network location type in Windows Vista is a setting that allows Windows Vista to automatically configure security and other settings based on the type of network to which the computer is connected. The Windows Vista network location types are the following:

• Domain The computer is connected to a network that contains an Active Directory domain controller for the domain to which the computer is joined. An example a domain network type is an organisation Intranet.
• Public The computer is connected to a network that has a direct connection to the Internet. Examples of public network types are public Internet access networks such as those found in airports, libraries, and coffee shops.
• Private The computer is connected to a network that has some level of protection from the Internet and contains known or trusted computers. Examples of private network types are home networks or small office networks that are located behind an Internet gateway device that provides firewalling against incoming traffic from the Internet.

For small office or home office networks, you want to make sure that the network location type is set to private.

To view the current network location type, do the following, click Start, right-click Network, and then click Properties.

The Network and Sharing Centre window displays the network location type in parentheses after the network name.

If your network type is Public, do the following:

1. To the right of the network name and location type, click Customise.
2. In the Set Network Location dialogue box, click Private, and then click Next.
3. In the Successfully set network settings dialogue box, click Close.

Enabling File and Printer Sharing Options

By changing your network location type to private, network discovery is automatically enabled in the Sharing and Discovery section of the Network and Sharing Centre window. The following additional file and printer sharing options must be manually enabled:

• File sharing
• Public folder sharing
• Printer sharing
• Password protected sharing

When all of these sharing and discovery options are enabled, your computer can:

• Locate other computers and devices on your home network and have other computers locate your computer
• Share its folders
• Share its Public folder
• Share its printers
• Require user names and passwords for other computers that connect to the shared folders and printers of this computer

To enable file sharing, do the following:

1. In the Sharing and Discovery section of the Network and Sharing Centre window, click the down arrow next to File sharing.
2. Within the File sharing settings, click Turn on file sharing, and then click Apply.

To enable public folder sharing, do the following:

1. In the Sharing and Discovery section of the Network and Sharing Centre window, click the down arrow next to Public folder sharing.
2. Within the Public folder sharing settings, click one of the following:
   • If you want to share the public folder so that other computers on the network can access the Public share to open files, but not create or change files, click Turn on sharing so anyone with network access can open files. This is the default setting.
   • If you want to share the public folder so that other computers on the network can access the Public share to open files and also create or change files, click Turn on sharing so anyone with network access can open, change, and create files.
   • Click Apply.

To enable printer sharing and share all of your connected printers, do the following:

1. In the Sharing and Discovery section of the Network and Sharing Canter window, click the down arrow next to Printer sharing.
2. Within the Printer sharing settings, click Turn on printer sharing, and then click Apply.

To enable password protected sharing, do the following:

1. In the Sharing and Discovery section of the Network and Sharing Centre window, click the down arrow next to Password protected sharing.
2. Within the Password protected sharing settings, click Turn on password protected sharing, and then click Apply.

Password Protected Sharing

With password protected sharing enabled, other computers on your network will not be able to access your shared folders, including the Public folder, without a user name or password that corresponds to a user account on the computer with the shared folder. When a user on another computer tries to connect to the shared folder, they will send the user name and password of the account that they used to log on to their own computer. For example, if they logged on to their computer with the “Bob” account and a password, then the “Bob” name with its password is sent when connecting to a shared folder on another computer.

If there is a “Bob” account with its password on the computer that is sharing the folder, the shared folder connection will be successful (provided the "Bob" account is specified as one of the accounts that can access the share). However, if there is no “Bob” account on the computer that is sharing the folder, the shared folder connection will fail and the user on the other computer will be prompted with a dialogue box to type in a user name and password. At this point, the user on the computer attempting to connect can type the name and password of an account on the computer sharing the folder that is specified as one of the accounts that can access the share.

To prevent shared folder connection failures, you can do one of the following:

• Add the same accounts and passwords to all of the computers on your network
  For example, if you have three computers in your home and four family members that use them, add all four accounts with their passwords corresponding to your family members to all three computers. When this is done, each family member can access the shared folders of the other computers, regardless of which computer they are using. This is the recommended method, which provides protection of shared folders and prevents shared folder connection failures.
• Disable password protected sharing
  When you disable password protected sharing, the computer sharing the folder does not require a user account or password. Anyone on your network can access the shared folders of the computer (provided the folder was shared for the Guest or Everyone account. This behaviour is equivalent to simple file sharing in Windows XP.
• To disable password protected sharing, do the following:
  1. In the Sharing and Discovery section of the Network and Sharing Centre window, click the down arrow next to Password protected sharing.
  2. Within the Password protected sharing settings, click Turn off password protected sharing, and then click Apply.

Seeing the Shared Network

Important NOTE:

If the shared folder is on a computer running Windows Vista that has network discovery enabled, it should appear in the Network window quickly. If the computer containing the shared folder is on a computer running Windows XP, it might take up to 15 minutes! for the computer to appear in the Network window.

Important Points to Remember

If the computer that you are trying to access has password protected sharing enabled, the possibilities are the following:

• If you are logged in using a user account that has been added to the computer sharing the folder and that name has been added to the list of users who have access to the folder, the shared folder connection will be successful.
• If you are logged in using a user account that has not been added to the computer sharing the folder, you will be prompted to provide a user name and password of an account on the computer sharing the folder that has been added to the list of users who have access to the folder.
• If you are logged in using a user account that has been added to the computer sharing the folder but has not been added to the list of users who can access the share, the shared folder connection will be denied.

Accessing a Shared Printer

1. Click Start, and then click Network. The Network window displays a list of computers in the workgroup of the computer.
2. Double-click the name of the computer containing the shared printer that you want to access.
3. Right-click the shared printer that you want to access, and then click Connect. Alternately, you can double-click on Printers to see just the list of shared printers, and then right-click the shared printer that you want to access, and then click Connect.

Cannot Authenticate to a Shared Folder from a Windows Vista-based Computer

If you cannot authenticate when accessing a shared folder from a Windows Vista-based computer on a computer running a version of Windows prior to Windows XP (such as Windows 98 or Windows 95), a computer running an operating system other than Microsoft Windows, or to a network device, the cause might be a mismatch in the configured support for NTLM 2, an authentication protocol that is used for file and printer sharing connections. By default, Windows Vista is configured to use NTLM 2.

To resolve this issue, you can do one of the following:

• Enable NTLM 2 support on the computer or device to which the Windows Vista-based computer is attempting to connect. '''For computers running versions of Windows prior to Windows XP, see How to enable NTLM 2 authentication. For computers running operating systems other than Windows, see the operating system's product documentation for information about how to enable NTLM 2 support. For network devices, see the device's product documentation or Web site for information about how to enable NTLM 2 support or download a firmware update that supports NTLM 2. This is the preferred solution.
• If you cannot update the computers running operating systems other than Windows or your network devices to support NTLM 2, change the
  
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\LMCompatibilityLevel
  
  registry value on the computer running Windows Vista to 1. This solution is not recommended by Microsoft however in some instances, it would be quite valid, especially where internet is not available.

NTLM 2 has been available for Windows NT 4.0 since Service Pack 4 (SP4) was released, and it is supported natively in Windows 2000. You can add NTLM 2 support to Windows 98 by installing the Active Directory Client Extensions. [1]

Administrative Shares and Sharing the Root of a Drive

Windows XP by default created administrative shares for the root folders of the fixed drives of the computer. For example, for the root of the C: drive on the computer named BobPC, Windows XP automatically shared \\bobpc\c$. The “$” at the end of the share name means that the share name will not appear in the list of shares. For computers running Windows Vista that are members of a workgroup, these administrative shares exist but are blocked for network access for security reasons. You can create your own shares to share your drives from the root of the drive, but Microsoft highly recommends that you share only the folders that you need to, rather than the entire drive.

To share the root of a drive, do the following:

• Right-click the drive in the Computer window, and then click Share. Windows Vista displays the properties for the drive with the Sharing tab selected.
• The Share button and the File Sharing dialog box are not available.
• Click Advanced Sharing.
• In the Advanced Sharing dialog box, click Share this folder and specify the share name, permissions, and other settings as needed. Click OK, and then click Close.

Because the “driveletter$” shares already exist, you cannot share the root of a drive with the name “driveletter$”. However, you can share it with another name, such as “driveletter”. For example, you cannot share the root of your C: drive as “C$”, but you can share it as “C”.

Referencing

Microsoft TechNet - Retrieved 3 Sep 2008
1. ^ How to enable NTLM 2 authentication - Retrieved 3 Sep 2008

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