xppro win98 lan shares

[TonyT]

I am revising a small lan for a company that currently has 5 win98 boxes on it. One will be replaced with an xppro box and I need for the win98 boxes to be able to access a shared fat32 partition on the xp box. What's the best way to do this if Simple File Sharing is disabled on the xp box? Step by step...

[YeOldeStonecat]

Can do with just TCP/IP, or add NetBEUI if you wish depending on what the shared app (if it's an app) prefers.

Having them the same workgroup will help name resolution happen faster.

What I've done, is first figure out how the workstations will log on. Win9X, if you have the primary login as "Client for Microsoft Networks", will want a username and a password to log on to access networked resources.

I'll give a dry example of what I mean.

For the sake of this example, lets name the WinXP box "Server1", and each Win98 box "Workstation1", "Workstation2", "Workstation3", etc etc.

On the WinXP box, you might log in as Administrator with a password of "tonythegreat". Or you might make a good Admin password for the WinXP box of whatever you want, and make another local account for daily login, somthing like a username of Tony with a password of "frostedflakes". Making that Tony account a member of the local admin group is optional.

On the Win9X boxes, think of what you want them to log in using, meaning username and passwords. For the example, lets use...for Workstation1, a username of WS1 with a password of "one", for Workstation2, a username of WS2 with a password of "two", for Workstation3, a username of WS3 with a password of "three", etc etc.

Now, on the WinXP box, you'll create local user accounts matching those...create a local user "WS1" with a password of "one", create one for "WS2" with a password of "two", etc etc.

Now, on that shared partition on the WinXP box, share the partition, but by default it will be shared to the "Everyone" group. But what I do is add "System", the local "Administrators" group, the "Administrator" account, the local account that you'll use to log in on a daily basis, "Tony" in this example, and also the accounts "WS1", "WS2", "WS3", etc etc. Then I remove the "Everyone" group from the share. Adjust the checkboxes for certain privs accordingly. Such as read only, etc.

You don't need to keep this share FAT32, you can have it NTFS. If it's NTFS, what I normally do is keep the share to the "Everyone" group...but you'll see a security tab for permissions, and you go into that and follow the example I made above. With NTFS you have two levels for sharing, FAT32 is just one.

Now going over to the Win9X boxes, right click "Network Neighborhood", select "Properties". Make sure the primary login type is "Client for Microsoft Networks", that you have your protocols properly set. Do a search on the C drive for *.PWL and delete all that you find. Log off, or reboot if you had to reset anything...you'll come to the prompt for username and password. Login according to how you wish...and because it's the first time you're logging in under this new username, it will prompt you to confirm your password a second time. Do so. This makes the new <whatevertheusernameis>.pwl file.

Should be good to go now, can make a batch file to map a network drive and drag a shortcut into your startup folder, or just drag a folder across network neighborhood if UNC path is fine. Might take a little while for name resolution to catch up (network browsing cache) if you use only TCP...but it'll get there.

[TonyT]

Thanks, you told me wjat I needed to know. I knew about all except the part about setting up local user accounts on the xp box.

Questions:
How are the win98 boxes able to read/write to the xp ntfs partition? Cause 98 cannot read/write to ntfs.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Questions:
How are the win98 boxes able to read/write to the xp ntfs partition? Cause 98 cannot read/write to ntfs.

Correct...Win9X cannot access NTFS...if you slave in a hard drive.

But....as long as the computer that the NTFS drives are in, is an NTFS capable OS, that's all you need. Because the OS does the "translation" when working with the NTFS before networking services. Once the data hits networking services, wether or not it's FAT or NTFS is now a moot point. Think of large networks about 5-7 years ago, NTFS servers, Win95 clients.

[TonyT]

Great! I had a misconception about this. I'd thought that older systems could not read ntfs under any circumstances and that the 'dos based systems' needed special drivers to read-write to ntfs even when networked. This makes my task MUCH easier now as will now have theSecurity Tab in the additional partition.

I asume that the above holds true even if the xp box is NOT a server but just another client system on the network? The xp box in my case will not be a server.

Correct...Win9X cannot access NTFS...if you slave in a hard drive.

But....as long as the computer that the NTFS drives are in, is an NTFS capable OS, that's all you need. Because the OS does the "translation" when working with the NTFS before networking services. Once the data hits networking services, wether or not it's FAT or NTFS is now a moot point. Think of large networks about 5-7 years ago, NTFS servers, Win95 clients.

[YeOldeStonecat]

I asume that the above holds true even if the xp box is NOT a server but just another client system on the network? The xp box in my case will not be a server.

Correct, it's still true. One of the differences between a desktop OS, and a proper server OS, is the desktop OS will only allow up to 10 concurrent connections. You're only dealing with 5x Win9x clients, so that's a non-issue for you. However....growth down the road...only a couple more clients and you'll be forced to bump up to a server OS.

[TonyT]

YOS,
Thanks. I got it all set up sweely.
5 systems behind a linksys router. ( for the business, 2 personal)
XPPro box (business) w/ a ststic ip, other two business 98 boxes have dynamic ips. (win98 is a pita to set static sometimes)
XPPro shares a printer & a dir on the D: ext part (ntfs).
Added the two 98 comps as XP users: comp1_user & comp2_user.
Instant access to the shares from the 98 boxes.
Piece of cake!
Thanks a lot,
tt

[YeOldeStonecat]

:thumb:

A note, I found the opposite to be optimal for LANs behind home broadband routers....Win98 would fall off of the humble DHCP service of the router quite often, so I usually gave the 9X boxes static LAN IPs. Whereas I found 2K/XP ran fine pulling a DHCP. Like the 9X boxes didn't follow 100% compatibility with the basic DHCP services of entry level routers.

[TonyT]

Thanks, that reminded me of the need to set a static ip for 1 of the 98 boxes. I have a batch file on the xp box that copies a dir & contents from the 1 win98 box as part of a daily backup routine. It use a path of "\\Computer 1\C\My Documents\KLR" so as long as the 98 box is assigned an ip from the router the script will work. But sometimes the linksys does not always have all the dhcp clients in it's dhcp table, so if I use a static ip then it will bypass the need to be listed in that table. I am positive the script will work even if the linksys table is not 'fresh', but better to be safe than sorry I guess.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Yah. Best to assign static IP's that are not in your DHCP handout range. Meaning....192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.99 are good to use for static IPs. Because the router, by default, starts handing out IPs from .100 on up. And having static IPs close by can lead to problems.