Help needed on sharing printers and files

[fredwinter]

I recently purchased a laptop (vista home) for a young friend and a Netgear DG834G modem router for her to set up a home network with her mother. Mum runs a desktop with windows XP SP2. Connecting the modem router to the desktop (by cable) was no problem, as you might imagine, and I eventually managed to connect (wireless) the laptop to the router. They now wish to share the printer connected to mum's desktop, and files. Every time I run the network wizard it fails at the final hurdle and gives me the message like "unable to terminate connection". Similarly, when i separately to share mum's printer and click on share this computer it comes back with "printer settings could not be saved, operation could not be completed"
On another and perhaps related problem, I am unable to adjust the settings of windows firewall. I can not access it at all.
grateful for any advice.

 

[DelJo63]

Your symptoms ALL sound like you're not logged in as the Admin and do
not have Admin privileges.

The firewall is the first thing to get working right. The Windows default FW
is easy; on the exception tab, enable Print/File Sharing.

If this is not possible, then the Admin comment applies. Try booting into
Safe Mode and then fix the FW.

 

[fredwinter]

help needed on sharing printer and files

many thanks for the rapid reply.

Forgive my ignorance, but how do i log on as admin. and how will booting up in safe mode help? How do i fix the FW in safe mode.

I have managed to click on to FW properties by accessing it through services. It tells me the fire wall is on automatic but switched off. when I try to turn it on it will not.

Could this be because of the router I have installed? I see that it has a double fire wall.

regards

 

[DelJo63]

Could this be because of the router I have installed? I see that it has a double fire wall.

absolutely

... but how do i log on as admin.
and how will booting up in safe mode help?
How do i fix the FW in safe mode.

I have managed to click on to FW properties by accessing it through services. It tells me the fire wall is on automatic but switched off. when I try to turn it on it will not.

sorry for the delay -- I've been out of town and away from Internet access.

First, go to Control Panel->User Accounts. What do you see?
Just your account or a list of all accounts? On the left side you SHOULD see
a link for Add New Account (if you really are the admin).

Safe Mode (hit F8 repeatedly durring boot) will allow you to get to an admin account and prompt for a password (if required; you need one if it doesn't).

From an Admin account, you can enable the windows firewall. You should also use the User Accounts to Change the Way Users Login; require passwords!

Once you get this far, you Enable Print/File sharing in the firewall AND
in your router allow traffic for sharing (eg ports 137-139 + 445) -- but deal
with that latter.

Your first issue is to be able to Save Settings.

 

[fredwinter]

Got most things working while you were away thanks to lots of research. Printer is sharing fine (now I know that i had to connect it as a local printer on vista and configure a port etc.............would never have worked that one out). one thing not working: cant read files on the xp desktop from vista laptop Other way round is fine. Access denied. have enabled sharing and security on selected folders. Have configured both windows firewalls and norton on vista. Xp is using AVG with no firewall. cant yet figure out how to set the router firewall Netgear 834dsg to allow full sharing on the network.

 

[DelJo63]

one thing not working: cant read files on the xp desktop from vista laptop Other way round is fine. Access denied. have enabled sharing and security on selected folders. Have configured both windows firewalls and norton on vista. Xp is using AVG with no firewall. cant yet figure out how to set the router firewall Netgear 834dsg to allow full sharing on the network.

Access denied says you'r into the system and there's permission issues.
It also says the firewalls are/or may be just fine.

XP/SP1 has no firewall, but XP2 does. 1) use it and 2) there's an exception tab
to set print/file sharing.

you need to enable Simple Filesharing; see
http://www.practicallynetworked.com/sharing/xp/filesharing.htm