Forum I am working at a client site today. This is a very simple network. They just have two Windows 7 machines (Front Office and Back office). The Back office computer is the computer which has the folder that folks at the Front Office computer need to access. I keep getting a message when I try to map a drive to the shared folder on the Back Office machine. The error message indicates that I dont have permissons to access the folder on the Back machine. I have shared the folder on the back machine, but the issue is that I can only add "Specific People" from the Back Office machine. It does not allow me to share to accounts on the Front machine (The front machine does not show up as an option). I am not using Home Networking, as this is a legitimitate "work" network. How can I add the permissions for the Front machine to the folder on the back machine? Thank You KMNR UserKevin Melton

The golden rules of peer-to-peer networking are: 1. Each machine must have knowledge of the credentials of the user account connecting to it. 2. Each user account must have a password. For example, If a user called 'Peter' on computer A wants to connect to another machine (call it machine B), then there must exist a user account on machine B called 'Peter', and the passwords must match. No machine has knowledge of the user accounts on any other machine. That is why you can't add people from the Front Office machine. The Back Office machine doesn't know about Front Office's user accounts! You need to add the same accounts, with the same passwords to both machines.

Thanks for the quick response. I thought what you have said is correct, and when I set this network up a month ago, I created five accounts (one for each user) on each machine. Would case sensitivity matter in this instance I wonder... for example, if I created a "kim" account on Computer A and a "Kim" account on computer B (effectively the server holding the share), and both of these have the same password, is Windows going to balk because of the case difference? I am not sure what else to think of, unless of course I have mismanaged the passwords on each account (possible). I will be able to ensure that both account passwords match today once the staff is done. I will post again- or perhaps mark resolved- once completed. Thanks again KMNR user Kevin Melton

Hi Kevin, No, the user names are not case sensitive. I trot out that thing about p2p networking a lot, because there is a lot of confusion and mis-understanding re this topic. But what I have said is true, and you were right to think so.

Hi there, Have you been able to edit the advanced permissions module in Windows on each machine for all the users? I have noticed some funny user stuff on my home networks over the past few Windows versions and that did help me before. This may have already been done by you. The reason I mention this is because I had rejected user log-on's and going into the advanced area and checking rights boxes manually helped on a few occasions. Just a thought. John John Wiley

Hi, I am just writing to check the status of this thread. Was the information provided in previous reply helpful to you? Do you have any further questions or concerns? Please feel free to let us know. Regards, Alex Zhao TechNet Subscriber Support in forum If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tnmff@microsoft.com.Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Hi, As this thread has been quiet for a while, we assume that the issue has been resolved. At this time, we will mark it as ‘Answered’ as the previous steps should be helpful for many similar scenarios. If the issue still persists, please feel free to reply this post directly so we will be notified to follow it up. You can also choose to unmark the answer as you wish. BTW, we’d love to hear your feedback about the solution. By sharing your experience you can help other community members facing similar problems. Thanks for your understanding and efforts. Regards, Alex Zhao TechNet Subscriber Support in forum If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tnmff@microsoft.com.Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.