XP-CE WLAN

Hi

I'm on my last leg of building a WLAN. Have XP Centrino notebook (g; host), ME notebook(g PC card), and CE Jornada 820 (b PC card). All can share DSL internet connection. All see each other on the network EXCEPT CE can't access shared file on XP. I get error message "Bad Network Path; check to see if dialup connection is OK or reinsert network card". I'm using \\computername\sharename format in PIE. All names are < 8 characters. I've got a DNS suffix on the XP and tried the "full computer name" as well with no luck. The CE connects to the ME shared folder fine. I have XP Windows Firewall disabled (only way to get ME to see the XP). Do I have XP shared folder configured wrong?? Must be something simple but it is bugging me alot.

The support docs on the site have been great and have read most of them. Thanks in advance for all the help.

grebee,

Are you running XP Pro or Home?

try disabling advanced sharing in XP. maybe worth a try to share a root (c:, d:, etc..) as well.

Edited by cmonex 2005-03-30 6:15 PM

In Control Panel, Network, Indentification tab, type in a user name that is not the same as your XP machine. Just a hunch.

grebee ... have you tried setting up the hostname thingie on your HPC? if I dun recall wrongly, that is kinda needed as well ...

eg computername 192.168.0.1 ... this is stored in the registry ... there is a tool called PocketHost (I think) that gives you a GUI to do it. ... if that is what is needed ... C:Amie ?

Is your XP hard drive formatted using the NTFS file system? (Chances are it is.) If that's the case, that's probably the problem... Windows CE can't read NTFS, only FAT, FAT16, and FAT32 (though I'm unsure if HPC Pro supported FAT32 or not.) This is why it can access your ME machine, as ME uses FAT32.

I won't think that's the cause of the problem, when accessing network shares, the client needs to know nothing about the server's underlying filesystem of partitioning scheme, as all the data is not read directly from the server's HDD, instead, it's "served" by the server (sorry 'bout the stupid redundance), so the actual filesystem the client connects when using network shares is the SMB-FS (Server Mount Block).

If you'll like to prove it, access a share of an XP machine (NTFS formatted) with a 9x machine. even though 9x knows nothing about NTFS it will read from it, because of the reasons explained above.

Hope this helps

Dear Snappy and grebee:

i've done some research on "Pocket host" and found the software, what it does is the equivalent of writing a HOSTS file on a normal PC. but i'm afraid the software claims it's only HPC2000 compatible.

Anyway, if you think it's worth to give it a try, here's the URL
http://www.zimac.de/cestuff.htm

Hope this helps

BTW: remember C:Amie has been abducted by some Piddle-PC zealots. so let's all keep our promise of not breaking anything, have the forums in order and be good boys until he's back

sorry about the double post, i didn't remembered i've posted in the other firefox tab already... Does that means i've now broken the promise?

Edited by matrixcore 2005-03-31 1:47 AM

Lions and Tigers and Bears oh my!.

cmonex,
That depends on whether he is using XP Home or Pro, if he's using Pro it's too late as the NTFS permissions will have been set already, and Home of course doesn't have it.

Takwu,
Actually you need to log onto the system using the same access credentials which you access the system with - assuming it is NTFS. Always worth bouncing it to the Admin account briefly just to check though - assuming XP Pro.

Snappy!,
The WINS addressing and LMHost data is required for LAN Sync, although on reflection you could have a point re NetBIOS broadcasting, I think this one is a ACL problem.

Surrealmonk,
Windows CE can't connect to a physical NTFS volume, however to a LAN file system is neither here nor there. Is why Windows can LAN share with Linux, Mac and vice versa.
HPC Pro has full FAT32 support.

matrixcore,
What you said, except SMB stands for Server Message Block. And indeed if this isn't a ACL problem you are likly spot on with it being a SMB problem (a SMB signing one to be specific).
I've documented troubleshooting that one here:
http://www.hpcfactor.com/support/cesd/c/0010.asp XP Pro users will want to follow Step 1.
I'm still rooting for an ACL issue though.
Don't worry about the double post. I'll forgive you
hehehe

So! Back to my original question. XP Pro / MCE / Embedded or XP Home / Light?

The host is XP Home SP2.

Hi. Thanks for the response. I've seen on XP forums where I can configure the folder as "Simple File Sharing". I was going to try that in the next couple of days. I'll see if there is a way to disable "advanced". Let you know.

Grebee,

XP Home doesn't support the advanced file sharing as it doesn't support gui CACLS (don't worry about it, lol).
I recommend that you disable the folder shares on the system, run the Windows XP Network Sutup Wizard, then reenable the file shares on the system.

Windows will then reset folder permissions to default and it should allow you access to your shares.

I suggested a different user name because if there is already a user logged on with the same name, your CE machine won't be recognized as a valid user.

As for NTFS, I recommend allowing everyone to access it in the file system level, and limit only on the file sharing level. Functionality before security

D'oh! There's a big chink in my Geek Crown now... for some reason, I though the OS had to be able to read the volume format to be able to access a network share... Time to dust off the network manuals!

Takwu, I have never experienced that on a Windows system short of a directly integrated group policy which expressed log-on limits. AsXP-Home does'nt support group policy, then it would be a strage set of events which made that true.

Under XP home you can't change the permissions anyway, not that I recommend Joe user plays with ACL settings in the first place. You can lock yourself out of your own hard disk if you don't know what you're doing.