Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear - aka Pro, Media Center, and Home

Does anyone have any wisdom regarding problems XP Pro, Home, and Media Center have interacting with each other over a local network? In particular, does Media Center act more like a quasi-Pro, or more like a quasi-Home?

My two basic problems have to do with file sharing and seeing the networked printer attached to the local network. Pro and Home do fine on both - with each other - Media Center cannot get access to shared files, and cannot see the network printer even though I can browse to the print server's admin webpage, logon, and administer the print server using the Media Center system.

Right now I am at wits' end dealing with Media Center, and am on the verge of blowing $300 on a retail version of Pro just to be rid of this abomination. I may be switching to linux sooner than 2014 at the rate things are going here, even with XP.

EDIT: Ok. I finished doing a complete reinstall of everything I could find on the printer manufacturer's website at Media Center, and something finally stuck 'cause now I can print to the printer. However, I'd still be interested in hearing from anyone who knows of any other ... idiosyncracies in the way these three pseudo-OSes interact.

 

MCE is a stripped down version of pro. You can get domains and other pro features back with reg hacks.

 

I gave up trying to network XP non-pro computers together. Just get an OEM copy of pro from newegg ($130) and be done with it.

 

I don't suppose you'd have any research links I could follow, strictly out of a purely platonic, academic interest in the matter, would you?

 

That's about the point I'm at right now. It's interesting that the other poster mentioned getting XP networking functionality back, because I've noticed while watching the three systems interact through MS' network monitor, that the MC system seems to be acting more like a Pro system - albeit with severe(-r) brain damage, than like a Home system; for example, sometimes it seems to think it's in a domain when, of course, because of the Home system, the most I can ostensibly have is a workgroup. I'm thinking that part of the problem with file sharing may be that the MC system sees the workgroup as a domain, and keeps trying to authenticate into it as a domain, which of course will never get the right response out of the Pro system, which "knows" it's in a workgroup, or the Home system, which wouldn't recognize a domain if you hit it upside the head with one.

Of course, converting the MC system into a Pro system is going to be a royal PITA (and I ain't talking about Euros or Gyros ) since it's my wife's computer, which means everything has to be invisible to her, and, according to literature I've seen from MS, the MC version of XP is sort of an ersatz third-way, and doesn't qualify for the upgrade path to Pro - which means that I'll end up having to do a clean install, and then quick like put all of the settings and whatnot back the way she expects them. Yeeesh; I may have to use up my vacation time on that one.

 

You don't really need XP Pro if you're not in an Active Directory environment, and unless you're running a Windows 2000/2003/2008 server (which many of us do) then you're not in an AD environment.

When networking XP machines together, the two things I've found that cause the most problems (I'm assuming you've got all machines in the same Workgroup) are incorrect firewall settings, or Simple File Sharing (which is enabled by default). To test for firewall issues, just turn off the firewall on all machines. If that clears up the problem, then you know where to start looking. To turn off Simple File Sharing, go to My Computer, Tools, Folder Options, View...and scroll down to the bottom and uncheck Use Simple File Sharing.

Those would be my initial troubleshooting steps. It's OK if you want to move to Pro...nothing wrong with that. But it shouldn't be necessary for you simply to share folders and resources in a workgroup setting.

 

+1 for the above post, but sometimes just disabling the firewall from the user interface doesnt do the job....U might have to go into msconfig>services and disable the firewalls from there..!!

 

I turned simple file-sharing off, and disabled firewalls (although only from the UI) without much effect. I'll give the msconfig>services route a try. I've also been going through some of the permissions on the various files, and I may just attempt to reset to defaults and start over 'cause some of them are getting a little hairy - perhaps I've got a permissions conflict buried somewheres?

 

MCE is a pain. It has many compatibility issues. Hell, even the Zune doesn't work with MCE.

 

Works fine in XP MCE for me.......