Shared Folders sometimes working.....

[Katsu999]

I have 3 XP Home machines on my home network, and each has 1 or 2 Shared Folders, some Read-only, some not. The problem is that they rarely work, mostly getting messages like "Not enough server space ... blah blah blah" or "You do not have Admin Rights .... blah blah". But all the Logins are Administrators, which can be the same name or not, doesn't seem to make a difference. There is no Server on the Network. But occasionally, very rarely, the Shared Folders work fine. Anybody have some idea why it chooses when I can use Shared Folders or not? The changes happen on a daily basis, not "It worked all last month", they might work this morning and not the afternoon, completely randomly. This is so annoying, I've ended up using 8GB USB Keys on Sneakernet! Why does something so basic work so badly?

[JoeP517]

Have a look at Troubleshooting file shares on a home network » Windows Secrets Lounge.

Joe

[Tarbo]

Networking is part science and part black magic,even in the era of Windows 7 unfortunately (I know since I have about 25 computers networked...6 or 7 of those Win7 systems).

For the not enough server space errors investigate a registry entry called IRPStacksize; increasing its value to 18 or 21 from the default 15 usually sovles that problem.

The Admin rights error is just the computer's screwing themselves up with conflicting execution instructions; I've found that if I instruct a Repair on the network adapter settings the problem usually goes away but its not a permanent fix. What I would do to maybe fix if more effectively is unshare all the shared places then change the workgroup name on each the computers to something simple and common among them and then reshare the the folders you want shared (give appropriate permissions if not using simple sharing). I would also alter the shared name if possible. The idea is to give everything a fresh start with the assumption (hope) that it will work much better.

I further make a folder in My Documents and place a shortcut ( I drag and drop from the workgroup computers list) to each networked computer there and then make it a custom toolbar in the taskbar for quicker access. Use that if you ever have problem getting any workgrouped computer to show up in the list so you don't ever have to do a computer search to find it. You may not have that problem but its a bonus tip.

[Katsu999]

Well, I've tried all those things (some I had already done), and Shared Folders are still flakey and inconsistent.

Is this just another MS World of Pain? Surely it should work better than this?

Thanks to those who tried to help.

I think I'm just gonna have to do an 'OS Reinstall', even though it will take 2-4 days to reinstall Drivers, Utilities, Programs, Games, etc. etc. etc. etc.

Damn you Microsoft for building such rubbish OS's, then leaving us out in the cold with no solutions to basic faults!

If I didn't have so much invested in Programs and stuff, I would go over to the Dark Side (Mac OSX - basically a tarted-up Linux).


Will

[JoeP517]

Well, I've tried all those things (some I had already done), and Shared Folders are still flakey and inconsistent.

Is this just another MS World of Pain? Surely it should work better than this?

I've never had a problem with shared folders in XP as long as there was the same account name and password on each machine.

Joe

[DaveA]

The sharing of "My Documents" and any folders under it are controlled by the user account. When it was first set up, the account user was asked to shore with other users or not, if no sharing was selected then no sharing of this user folders will be allowed, even from other users on this same machine.

I have seen NO way of changing this sharing once the account has been made.

[Tarbo]

Hmmm, maybe your router is flakey or running some kind of software firewall. You could try turning off simple sharing (or vice versa) and use the security and permissions style of sharing and see if that works any better.