27 February 2007
Windows XP Network Login Problem
Posted by Mikhail Esteves under: Tips; Windows .
When trying to connect to a remote Windows XP machine the authentication dialog only asks you for the Guest password, with Guest pre-selected as the username and grayed out. To solve this, you need to change the “Simple File Sharing” setting on the remote Windows machine. To change this:
- Login with an administrator account on the remote XP machine
- Open Windows Explorer
- Surf to Tools | Folder Options | View
- The very last option you’ll see is Use simple file sharing (Recommended). Uncheck it.
You should now be able to connect to the remote machine with an existing username/password combination. Basically, for “Simple File Sharing” to work, you would also need to enable the Guest account. You could then provide the Guest password and connect. Works fine for normal shares… but if you’re trying to do a \\machine-name\G$ kinda thing… turn off Simple File Sharing!
