I have a windows workgroup. Is it possible to specify permissions to users and groups residing on other computers in the workgroup. If so, how can I do this. Whenever I go to add users it is only showing me the users on my computer, I can't select users and groups on other computers in the workgroup.
Thanks for any help.
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I'm running XP Proff on both.
So I cannot specify different levels of permission to users in a workgroup who access a share/files over the network?
I just ran a little test and it seems that all access over the network in a workgroup is controlled by the permissions on the guest account. Is that correct?
access and control is decentralized. each resource pc controls access to itself.
If you want to have Bob login to your PC, you have to create an account on your PC for Bob.
If you want to have John login to your PC, you have to create an account on your PC for John.
If you want to logon to Bob's PC, Bob will have to create an account for you on his PC.
If you want to logon to John's PC, John will have to create an account for you on his PC.
If John wants Bob to log on to his PC, John will have to create an account for Bob on John's PC
If Bob wants John to log on to his PC, Bob will have to create an account for John on Bob's PC
Access rights (permissions) will be controlled by the owners of those respective PCs, or the workgroup admin assumes that task, which means to effect sharing between the 3 PCs and 2 users remote users, 6 user names with permissions will have to be created as exampled above. This does not take into account the respective users being given access to their own respective PCs. This process exponentially escalates with more users being given access to all PCs and at some point the thought of having a client/server setup begins to look very attractive to the admin.
ECNS pretty much answered it right to the point. I don't know what type of environment you're operating in, but if you're needing to share things for an office, client-server would by far do you much better. Had you been in an Active Directory enviroment, you'd only have to do access controls on the server, which would involve the AD accounts, not the individual computer accounts.
Thanks ECNSSMT, that's clear now.
User accounts with the same name and password need to be created on each computer in a workgroup to control access to resources for all those users.
One thing I don't understand though is why access to resources over the network can be controlled using the guest account even though I've switched it off on my computer. What's that all about? I just tested it.
If Guest is disabled on the target; when you go into the Users folder, is there a red x on the upper left hand side of the icon, and when you open up Guest; there is a X in the checkbox next to "Account is disabled"? If these parameters are true, you should not be able to log into the target PC as Guest.
The only thing would be if you were logging onto another PC that didn't have its Guest account disabled. I know I've had my instances of "slip digits".
You can have the points ECNSSMT, but maybe you can clarify this too ;)
When I go into User Accounts, it says "Guest Account is off". When I go into computer management and look at the guest user account though it isn't disabled. When configured like this I've found that I can control user's access to resources by assigning/removing permissons for the guest account. However I did disable the guest acount and I couldn't access resources even when I'd created the same account of both pc's and given appropriate permissions to that account.
From what I can gather, if the guest account is disabled in computer management, no access across the network can be achieved. What "Guest account is off" means in User Accounts I have no idea.
Thanks masnrock for your help.
It is odd. The guest account is the guest account is it not? Either it's on or it's off, disabled or enabled.
I know this is another question but it's all kind of related. Does anyone know for sure whether the guest acount has to be enabled for access to shared resources over the network (in a workgroup). It sounds like an unnecessary security flaw because by creating accounts on all computers you wouldn't think the guest account would have to be enabled because another account is being used. I spent a little time putting this to test but it didn't seem to be possible to access resources without the guest account enabled.
From what I can gather, if the guest account is disabled in computer management, no access across the network can be achieved. What "Guest account is off" means in User Accounts I have no idea.
I am trying for the life of me to determine what that refers to, especially in reference to Computer Management as a whole. It would be nice if you can somehow post a screen shot; it may jar something. I assume that you are using a default install of XP and there are no third party management tools up there.
But I had two users, same name same password on each pc. When the guest account was disabled and i tried to access a shared resource with the appropriate permissions for that account, i was prompted for user name and password but it didn't allow access. I wasn't given a message "access denied", i got no message and no access.
I'm doubting myself now, I'll probably try it again tommorow.
Here's a link to "Guest account is off"
http://putfile.com/pic.php
Yeah, I can see that screen shot.... that only disables access from the local machine.
Go to Tools > Folder Options > View ... just wanna double check the Simple File Sharing (I know you said it's not enabled). Once that's disabled, unshare then reshare the folders. Let us know what happens and show some other screen shots as appropriate.
Here's my config for simple file sharing, I'll re-test the scenario tomorrow.
http://putfile.com/pic.php
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by: masnrockPosted on 2006-03-08 at 03:09:07ID: 16131753
Workgroups are not designed that way. You have to have a local account on the computer that's sharing the files, then control access that way. When users on other machines attempt to access files on yours, they have to authenticate into your machine. So unless they know a username/password combination to an account on your machine, they won't see any thing.
What version(s) of Windows are you running?