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Setting shared folder permissions on a mixed XP Pro, XP Home network

Apologies if this has been asked before or if it's too trivial. I don't know much about networking and would appreciate being pointed in the right direction. I've had a peer-to-peer network for myself and employees for a while now but with simple file sharing. I've just added a file storage system in the form of a big RAID-1 array attached to one of the computers. I want to use this drive array as the centralized store for the company data. I would like to set up two main folders on this drive - one private to the owners of the company and another open to everyone on the network. The computer that has the storage device runs XP Pro but most of the rest run XP Home. What's the easiest way to achieve what I want? Does it make it harder that some use XP Pro and the others XP Home?

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Rick Hobbs

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Rick Hobbs

I am sorry. The first line should be:
Yes, XP Pro and XP home together is tougher. XP Home is best for simple file sharing, not business type usage as is XP Pro. XP Home cannot become a member of a domain, so security is tougher to implement also. You may want to consider upgrading the XP Home machines to XP Pro.

Rick Hobbs

One more thing I just remembered. On all the XP system with the RAID drive you have to go to Administrative Tools, Local Security Policy, Open Local Policies, Select Security Options, Select Network Access:Sharing and Security model for local accounts and change it to Classic. Otherwise, only the Guest account could be used and only if you enable it.

FriarTuk

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/813936/ (how to setup home network in xp hm step 1-8, scroll pages)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/304040/en-us (how to configure sharing in xp)
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/filesharing.mspx