Accessing XP share from 2000 client

I'm well-versed with 2K but am an absolute newbie with XP. Our company recently (today) has migrated all of our desktop systems to XP/ActiveDirectory.

I use my personal notebook alongside my work PC, since my corporate issue one just doesn't cut it for what I want. My notebook is 2K, previously my desktop was 2K.

I created a share for the My Documents directory on my desktop PC, and mapped it to my notebook and then made it available offline. Net result was I could synch my work files before I left the office, and work on them at home without having to connect via our VPN, and any changes would be re-synched the next morning. Worked great.

Now, with XP, I've created a new map for the My Documents directory, and I have been able to map it from my notebook with no issues. I can access any files there, but the problem is that I can't write any files from my notebook to the share. Every time I do I get an error message claiming access denied, the source file may be in use (which isn't the case). Since the problem happened with every file I tried to write to the mapped drive, I'm attributing the issue to permissions on the share (ie. read-only).

I've checked the permissions on the share, I went from allowing only my account access to allowing Everyone total control, and still no dice. Tried creating new shares on different folders and the same result. I'm at a bit of a loss...

With our setup, my desktop is part of a domain but my notebook is standalone, and not connected to the domain. I'm able to establish the map by using my domain credentials (domain\username) so I don't think that's the issue. Our SE that came to our office for the migration is at a loss for why I can't do it. I also have local admin privileges on my desktop if that makes a difference (although I'm not a domain admin).

Since I'm new to XP, I'm wondering if I'm overlooking something obvious. Also, is it possible that something in our Group Policy is preventing me from creating a share that allows anything more than read-only access? The other thing I've noticed that is peculiar (to me) is the fact that whenever I check the properties for a folder (locally, not applied to the share), it is flagged as read-only. I can disable that, and it migrates the changes to all files and sub-folders, but once I apply and then check again, it's back to read-only. I haven't seen this on Win2K, could this be the problem? I have no issues writing to the folders locally.

Anyways, sorry for the long-winded post, just wanted to be as specific as possible.

Any help or input would be greatly appreciated...!

Cheers,
KV

Are your DC's still Windows 2000? There are still some ongoing issues with things like oplock and SMB using XP pro in a 2000 AD domain, and if I had my own computer here I could share some tips about that. I know we've had problems with certain programs due to incompatibility between 2000 and XP's SMB signing - could be something to look at with your share permission problems.

Thanks for your input, this world of AD and domains is new ground for me... Our domain servers are Win2003, so I don't know if that's contributing.

I kept playing around with it today and experimenting with different share permissions, even creating a local account with appropriate permissions, still no joy, so I'm going to break down and open a ticket with our IT guys to (hopefully) figure it out. Not good for my ego, but I'm at a loss...

Cheers,
KV

You've got me interested on this on KV, keep us informed of what you find.

You laptop has a domain acount, right?

No, it doesn't have a domain account and that could be the issue. Since it's my personal notebook I didn't want to have them attach it to the domain, I don't really need to for what I use it for.

A co-worker with a notebook that is connected to the domain has no problem synching with his desktop, but he's also running XP so that may or may not be why.

The part that I really can't understand is why I can access shares in a read-only mode from my notebook, but can't write to them. If I couldn't access them at all, I'd be willing to accept it was a domain issue, but it just seems strange. I can also access my personal directory on one of our 2K3 servers by accessing it through Network Neighbourhood and entering my domain credentials, but can't write to it either.

I suppose I could just enable file/print sharing on my notebook, and create a share that can be accessed from my desktop to accomplish the same task, but I'd prefer to get the bottom of this if I can, it's my sink or swim approach to learning XP....!

KV

What about accessing the share indirectly. Since you are a local machine admin, try \\computername\c$. (or d$, or e$ you get the point.)

Should give you the administrative share on the desktop.

I tried that, but admin shares are disabled on our desktops, not sure if that was the default with XP or if our IT guys did it.

However, I guess I can create one myself and give that a shot. I figure the more things I try, the better I can narrow it down... So that's my project for tomorrow...

Thanks,
KV

Problem sort of solved. I created a local account on the desktop, and gave it full control of my shared folder via ntfs permissions. Then created the share, and restricted the share to being accessible by this account.

From my notebook, I could then access the share by authenticating as the local account and once it was mapped, could read and write it as intended.

I had tried this originally, but must not have set the permissions properly. This time it worked.

I can only guess that something in our group policy or domain setup places access restrictions on domain accounts being authenticated from non-domain machines, or something like that. I don't know enough about gpo or ActiveDirectory to know if that's possible, but I'm at a loss otherwise.

Anyways, problem solved, even if it's with a bandaid.

Thanks for the tips....

KV