Advanced File Sharing Tweaks In Windows XP Home

Sometimes, even with the changes / checks suggested in my article Windows XP File Sharing, some folks can't be helped. Windows XP Home doesn't include all of the selections, and utilities, that XP Pro does. You may, at your discretion, use these procedures with XP Professional.

You have three choices, in this case.

• Use NTRights
  
• Disable Simple File Sharing in XP Home, or in XP Professional.
  
• Use the Security Configuration Manager
  

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Use NTRights
When the error message

Login failure: the user has not been granted the requested logon type at this computer.
or maybe
Logon failure: you have not been given permission to access this resource."

is received from an XP Pro computer, the problem is generally resolved by editing the Local Security Policy.

But, the Local Security Policy editor, aka "secpol.msc" is not included in Windows XP Home. In this case, you have to run NTRights, and enter the following commands (precisely as shown below):

ntrights +r SeNetworkLogonRight -u Guest
ntrights -r SeDenyNetworkLogonRight -u Guest
ntrights +r SeNetworkLogonRight -g Everyone
ntrights -r SeDenyNetworkLogonRight -g Everyone

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Disable Simple File Sharing
In another, even more mysterious situation, someone with XP Home may complain of ability to access some folders but not others. And we're not necessarily talking about "C:\Program Files", "C:\Windows", or any part of "My Documents", just unique folder trees, setup by the user. Looks like actual differences in folder Security settings.

The simplest way to resolve this is to recreate the problematic shares, if that's convenient.

• Delete the problem share(s).
  
• Restart the system.
  
• Recreate the share(s).
  
• Restart the system again.
  

If this isn't convenient, or doesn't work, you'll need to check the Security setting for the share. Only trouble is, you don't have a Security setting under Simple File Sharing.

And with XP Home, you can't disable Simple File Sharing.

Or can you? Fortunately, you can, temporarily, by starting up in "Safe Mode with Networking".

See Microsoft: A Description of the Safe Mode Boot Options in Windows XP.

With Simple File Sharing disabled in Safe Mode Boot, right click the desired folder, click Sharing and Security, and share the folder. Then, click the Permissions button to specify network access permissions, and click the Security tab to specify NTFS file system permissions. A network user needs both permissions in order to access the share.

For details how to set permissions, see PracticallyNetworked: Windows XP Professional File Sharing.

Having made the appropriate changes, reboot in Normal Mode.

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Use The Security Configuration Manager
The Security Configuration Manager, a security add-on tool originally used to harden Windows NT, may also work for Windows XP Home.

To install the SCM, as outlined in Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 98 Threat Mitigation Guide:

1. As an Administrator, open Windows Explorer.
   
2. Create the directory c:\temp if it does not already exist.
   
3. Download the SCM installer from http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/nts
   /downloads/recommended/scm/default.asp and save the downloaded file to C:\Temp.
   
4. Open C:\Temp and double-click the Scesp4i.exe application.
   
5. When prompted by the installation utility, specify a temporary file path of C:\Temp\scminstall in which to uncompress the support files, and then click OK.
   
6. Use Explorer to open C:\Temp\scminstall.
   
7. Double-click the Mssce utility to install the SCE and the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) tool required for the GUI version of the SCE. The installer will automatically place the SCM components in the correct location on the computer where you are installing.
   

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