Vist - Win7 Network Sharing Prob. :confused:

My sister has a Vista laptop, and is trying to access some of the movies I have in my Win7 laptop through our wireless network. We never had problem sharing files with XP before, but with Vista, everytime she tries to open my PC on the network, it asks for a password. I typed my PC's username and password, and she was able to see my files. The thing is, she can see just not my public files, but ALL of my files. :confused2:

Now after she had copied the movie she needed, I wanted to regain my privacy, but my username and password seemed to have been saved on her Vista pc, she can access all of my files anytime she wants, and I couldn't find anything on her Vista PC to clear that saved username and password of mine.

So basically I have 2 questions:

1. How can I set it such that someone on our network can see ONLY my public files (saved on the Public folder)? This is on a Win7 laptop.

2. How can I "clear" the saved username and password that was asked when my sister's Vista laptop tried to open my PC through our wireless network? I tried one step I found through googling, running control userpasswords2 and going to advance > manage passwords, but its empty on my sister's vista laptop.


Any help is greatly appreciated, its driving me crazy already. Thanks in advance. ^^

 

For question 1; Under Control Panel --> Network and Sharing Center --> Advanced Sharing settings; Turn off File and Printer Sharing and Turn on Public folder sharing....see the first attached image below. Exhibit A.

For question 2 I am uncertain, as I was gonna suggest that same Run command user controlpasswords2 --> Advanced --> Manage Passwords; and then look for your login credentials info and delete it. But you said nothing is there. (And you're trying this on the Vista machine right?)

Anywho, you can take a look at the other attached image, Exhibit B to see if making that change would solve anything. Under the same location mentioned above in Network and Sharing scroll to the bottom and Turn off Password Protected sharing....save those settings and see if that helps.

And just an FYI, make sure you make those changes in Network and Sharing under your current Network Profile. Whether you have it set to Home, Work or Public.

 

Thanks for your reply makaveli! ^^

In my Win7 laptop, I turned off the File and Printer Setting in both "Home or Work (current profile)" and in "Public". I also turned on Public Folder sharing. I rebooted both my win7 laptop and my sister's Vista laptop, and then rechecked - unfortunately she can still access my non-public folders.

Attached in this post are screenshots of what my sister sees on her Vista laptop. On the first pic, my Win7 pc shows up in the network, she opens it up, and it shows "Users" and "Printers" (img2), and that is after already turning off File and Printer sharing. When she opens up "Users", she sees "Guest", "Jad", and "Public" (img3). She is not supposed to see Guest nor Jad, as they are not shared (I never remembered sharing them, and also I did try right-clicking on them then selecting share with nobody, but still it shows up).

My sister's Vista laptop has Public Folder sharing on, File Sharing On, Printer Sharing off, and when I try to open her Vista laptop on my Win7 laptop thru the network, all I see is the folder "Public" (img4) which is exactly the privacy I want for my Win7 laptop. I just don't know why I can't do it.

 

Right click the User folder on your computer (which is at the root of the C: drive) and select Properties; under the Sharing Tab click Advanced Sharing and take out the check to share the folder. It seems to be checked by default. See attached.

 

Okay, so I unchecked the "Share this folder", but what happens now is that when my sister opens up my win7 pc on the network, its empty, not even the "Public" folder shows up. I tried to do the same on my Public folder (right-click > share with > advance sharing settings) and it led me back to network and sharing center. I turned on Public Folder sharing, but still, it doesn't show up in the network.

I tried to cut the "Public" folder and paste it out of the "Users" folder so that it won't be affected when I unshare the "Users" folder (by default, the Public folder is inside the Users folder), but I failed because it brought up an error.

+rep btw, makaveli. ^^

Network problems make my head ache.

 

Is she running at least SP1 on her Vista latpop?

Do you have the latest Windows Updates for Win. 7?

Some things seems fishy with those permissions not working as they should.

Umm...well, the least you can do is leave the User folder not shared and create a new folder anywhere you choose and share that to everyone.

Also, if you create a duplicate username/password of your sister's user account on your machine you can better define sharing and security permissions on the folder(s) that you choose to share.

For example if you create an identical username and password that your sister uses right now on her machine, on your computer you can actually go into the properties of the folder you choose to share by right-clicking the folder --> Properties and share the folder via the Sharing tab exclusively to her and also better define what she can and can't do under the Security tab.

Then she can connect as she usually would via Explorer or the Run command etc. and use that same user/pass to gain access. And if set up properly she can even have that shared folder mapped as a Drive in My Computer or on her desktop via a shortcut.

So moral of my story, I would ditch using the Public folder to share files from. ....it seems too much of a hassle.