Some hints and links to help XP/Vista File Sharing (in general)
1. For initial testing: Turn off all your computer firewalls and reboot
> Firewalls are often an underlying cause of the problem
> BUT
Disconnect from your ISP when testing with firewalls off
> After switching your firewalls off, REBOOT all your computers. Note that some firewall/LAN changes can take
up to 12 minutes before being reflected in Windows Networking! (that's just the way it works!)
> /* EDIT*/ Once you see it works with firewalls off, you can troubleshoot it with firewalls turned back on
2) If you're also going to try to do File Sharing, some notes about: Vista Password Protected Sharing (PPS) vs Non-PPS
> XP's Simple File Sharing (SFS) is equivalent to Vista's non-PPS
> XP's non-SFS is equivalent to Vista's PPS
> Pretty confusing of MS to do that/use those terms, i know
> If you set
PPS on your Vista "server" for access by your XP "client" User Authentication is by user's
Logon ID. Both UserID/Password for both client/server machines must be an
EXACT match!
> If you set
non-PPS for your Vista "server", the User Authentication is done using the
Guest account. Make sure Guest is enabled and passwords for Guest on the server and XP client match
3) You'd be best to be sure you solve computer visibility issues before trying to debug access permissions
> Computers must be "visible"
> Then the server can "authenticate" a client request (by allowing remote logon by userid/password)
> Then the server can check access permissions of a request (based on access permissions associated with the userid used to authenticate the client request)
Also you might find this
link helpful on mapping drives
/* EDIT */
One more helpful hint.. tho don't know it will apply in your case..
If you can set Local Policy on your "server" machine (i think only possible if it it runs XP Pro or Vista Business) you can turn on Local Audit Policy to Audit all Logons!
(look for the audit events in Windows Event Security Log)
>> You can then tell if client machine is even getting to the point of trying remote logon for its request
>> You can see the userid client machine is using to attempt remote logon (e.g. is it using Guest or a user LogonID?)
>> You can see if the server allows or denies the client logon