XP Basic -vs- Pro

With the basic XP software, when you enable your PC to share files on
the network there is no password required from the other network
machine. With Vista, one must be logged into the sharing Vista
machine from the remote machine to gain access to the files.

How does XP Pro work in this regard?

I'm trying to figure out what version of XP to get to replace the &^%$
Vista that my machine came with. I only have experience of the old XP
Basic, but I'd consider the Pro version if it had password control on
the network sharing like Vista does.

Thanks.

Bill

On Sat, 26 Apr 2008 21:23:15 GMT, Bill Martin
<martin_spamtrap@verizon.net> wrote:

>With the basic XP software, when you enable your PC to share files on
>the network there is no password required from the other network
>machine. With Vista, one must be logged into the sharing Vista
>machine from the remote machine to gain access to the files.
>
>How does XP Pro work in this regard?
>
>I'm trying to figure out what version of XP to get to replace the &^%$
>Vista that my machine came with. I only have experience of the old XP
>Basic, but I'd consider the Pro version if it had password control on
>the network sharing like Vista does.
>
>Thanks.
>
>Bill
--------------------

Yes, I realize I should have said XP Home rather than Basic. You
understand the question though.

Bill

"Bill Martin" wrote:

> With the basic XP software, when you enable your PC to share files on
> the network there is no password required from the other network
> machine. With Vista, one must be logged into the sharing Vista
> machine from the remote machine to gain access to the files.
>
> How does XP Pro work in this regard?
>
On Home, open a cmd prompt and type:
net user guest {password}
to set a password for file sharing. The limitation is that there can only be
the one common password for all network users.

With Pro you have the option to determine different passwords and
access-rights (readonly or read/write) for different users of each share. To
activate this, you turn off Simple File Sharing. So yes, if you need this
facility go for Pro.

Bill Martin wrote:
> With the basic XP software, when you enable your PC to share files
> on the network there is no password required from the other network
> machine. With Vista, one must be logged into the sharing Vista
> machine from the remote machine to gain access to the files.
>
> How does XP Pro work in this regard?
>
> I'm trying to figure out what version of XP to get to replace the
> &^%$ Vista that my machine came with. I only have experience of
> the old XP Basic, but I'd consider the Pro version if it had
> password control on the network sharing like Vista does.

Bill Martin wrote:
> Yes, I realize I should have said XP Home rather than Basic. You
> understand the question though.

Simple File Sharing?
In Windows XP Professional you can turn this off - yes.

How to configure file sharing in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/304040

(Google now that you know the terminology.)

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

On Sat, 26 Apr 2008 15:20:00 -0700, Anteaus
<Anteaus@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>On Home, open a cmd prompt and type:
>net user guest {password}
>to set a password for file sharing. The limitation is that there can only be
>the one common password for all network users.
-----------------------------

Thank you! For years I've wanted a way to set a password to provide
at least some protection for XP Home file sharing. Even people in
fora for firewall products and so forth did not know it could be done.
Given how easy it was to do in Win98, this always seemed to be the one
thing I didn't like about XP.

Bill