Yeah, since it's a company asset, you should always work with your IT department on how it should and is permitted to be used. No matter how careful you are or how well-protected your home environment might be, you must accept the simple fact that laptop users are pretty much now the biggest source of viruses, trojans and other malware getting into corporate networks, next to email.
Also realize that "simple file sharing" is meant for home use only, and the probability is that your IT department has disabled "simple file sharing" (and possibly any other kind of "sharing") because it interferes with business-class networking. It should only show up in Explorer settings as "recommended" on XP Home edition, and on XP Pro it should say "NOT recommended" and should be off by default, IMHO.
If you have the Windows client installed already but "simple file sharing" is disabled, the only way you can access shared devices on your home network is to change the home network to use conventional (pre-"simple") peer-to-peer file and print sharing. If you establish "real" sharing, and create an account on your home PCs for you to use to log into the home PCs to authenticate the shared devices, it will work. It's possible even to have it work without joining your work laptop to your home "workgroup" domain that way, by browsing "my network places" looking in "entire network," then "microsoft windows network" it should show your home workgroup name, and if you don't see anything, you should be able to get there by searching for a computer IP address on your home network.
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by: billmercerPosted on 2005-04-23 at 21:44:14ID: 13852559
In order to access your windows network at home, you need to have the Windows networking client installed, and you need to assign your computer to a workgroup (not a domain) that matches the other resources on your network.
Having the Novell client installed doesn't inherently interfere with the ability to use Windows networking. I'm guessing your company has disabled the Windows networking protocols, which would prevent you from accessing your home network, or possibly blocked ports needed for Windows networking with a firewall. There's no technical reason why you shouldn't be able to use both Netware and Windows networking at the same time. I do it all the time. In fact, it's possible to have both types of networks running at the same time.
BUT...
You should NOT try to do this without the consent of your IT department. Ask them to help you with this. Explain what it is you want to do and ask them to help you configure it. If they refuse, it may be for good reasons. It could be some sort of performance or security concern, or it could just be a policy that must be followed, but since it's their laptop, they get to make the rules.
One thing you could suggest would be adding a second network interface to the notebook, and configuring it to use just Windows Networking. They might be more willing to help you with that, since it would be less likely to cause them problems.