How about a sticky topic for Vista networking?

[bizzybody]

Seeing as how Microsoft keeps @#%%@#ing up networking with each new version of Windows so that users have to figure out all the new hoops to jump through...

With Win9x it was easy to setup a LAN that was completely open unto itself yet shielded from the internet. All you had to do was NOT bind File and Printer Sharing to TCP/IP for your dialup or NIC connected to the WAN. Sure someone could still pingflood your IP but they weren't getting into your system without inside help from a worm, trojan etc.

Then came 2000. 2000 could access Win9x shares just fine- just like another 9x box. But it got all prickly when you wanted to go the other direction.

Next came XP, and XP didn't want to talk to anyone else, or have anyone else talk to it. Heck, it wouldn't even talk to another PC running XP until the user found just exactly where to apply the heated tongs...

And now we have Vista, and exactly the same NYET-werking garbage all over again!

Here's an idea. Someone who knows all the dirty rotten little secrets of 2K/XP/Vista networking write up a program that'll run on all three versions and make all the changes needed to force them to communicate with each other while totally blocking access from WANs. (May I suggest a name? "Windows Networking Sledgehammer*" or "NyetWerk to NetWORK!")

I have 2 XP Pro systems and one Vista Home Basic system. One XP system I just reinstalled. They are all set to the same workgroup name, all their shared drives are set to give full control to Everyone and they can all see each other and themselves on the network.

Yet the only system that can access anything on any other system is the "old" XP install, it has full read/write access to the "new" XP install.

I'm just fed up with having to go and hunt up all the crap again to make what should be a SIMPLE operation actually work every time I reinstall Windows or add a new PC with a new version of Windows.

I do not need internal security! I am the only person who ever touches my computers so there's no need to protect anything on my computers from anything on my own computers. Also, I never ever have a need to access my LAN from anywhere else in the world. The only outside WAN access I need is the typical stuff for P2P, HTML and FTP- just ye olde ordinary 'intarweb' stuff. I don't even run separate user accounts on my PCs because I am the only user.

So WTH cannot Microsoft make setting that up EASY AND SIMPLE?!

P.S. I have installed the WINDOWS XP-KB922120-v5-x86-ENU.EXE patch on the XP boxes, but the Vista box could already see them before.

*Ever since the days of Windows 3.0 I've dreamed of an all-purpose program that fixes all the stupid things with Windows, called "Sledgehammer For Windows". It'd have a few 'attitude' settings with appropriate little animations and text to go with various environments and how the user feels... There'd have to be the boring blah 'work safe' setting, but then there'd be Maximum Attitude with the software's mascot pounding a Windows logo into a pancake while it says things like "So you don't wanna talk to Windows 2000? Well I'll fix that!" *POUND*SMASH*CRASH*

[cluberti]

Your rant only seems specific to Vista in that it's the last OS released to complain about, so moving this where it belongs.

[Stoic Joker]

Windows Networking Sledgehammer*

ROFL

Frankly I've never found it to be that difficult, But then again I tend to read alot...

[tain]

As for your topic title, this subforum (networking) is generally platform-independent. Questions that only apply to a specific OS tend to do well in that respective OS's subforum.

But the gist of your post seems to be that you want to start a new program/project. Perhaps this topic should be moved to the Developer's subforum?

[bizzybody]

What I want is a step by step guide to making Windows 2K/XP/Vista networking work, with what to do when something that is *supposed to work* doesn't actually work.

Ie, when you share a drive and give the Everyone group Full Control but windows still won't allow other computers on the LAN to access those shares, WTH do you do?

I'd also like Microsoft to stop @$%ing around with networking with every new Windows version. But that'll never happen. (But amazingly enough, in Vista they put Device Manager in Control Panel with its very own icon. Someone finally got a clue! I expected it to be buried even deeper than in XP.)

I'm not a programmer, I gave up on that idea over 20 years ago when I wrote one fairly complex game program and decided it wasn't fun, it was too much like work.

If anyone wants to write the Windows Networking utility that Windows SHOULD have, you're more than welcome to call it "Windows Networking Sledgehammer". Any anti-stupid-stuff Windows utility, go ahead and call it "Sledgehammer For Windows". I spent a whole afternoon researching online and beating the stupid out of Vista Home Basic on my new laptop. It almost looks and acts like XP with the "Classic" theme now and runs much faster with the junk scraped off. (Next step, building an even cleaner and leaner vLite install!)

I've 25 years experience with PCs and encountered just about every "WTH does this do *that*?!" thing possible with the software.

[Stoic Joker]

Making a utility that cripples its way through Windows security is not going to help anyone. You really need to take the time to learn what changes are made between versions, and why the changes were made... That will allow you to get things connected quickly & smoothly.

Most common mistakes I see people make:

Software firewalls - playing rock-in-the-stream

Blank Passwords - Windows won't allow accounts with blank pws to connect over a network (nor should it...)

[mhyll]

<REMOVED>

Please keep th e posts friendly

Edited November 17, 2007 by IcemanND