My workstations wont Talk! Please Help

[drdoug26]

Hi all,

I’ve got a small network setup at my office. I’m the ‘pseudo’ administrator. (In real life a Doctor). I’ve got 4 Workstations running XP Pro (SP-1) and one Server running Server 2000.

My network setup is as follows: The Domain is Chiro. Each workstation has the following computer names: (1,2,3 and 4). On each workstation I have one ‘user account setup with administrative privileges given. The user accounts on each workstation are (Jan, Cindy, Mark, and Lydia). Our Netopia Router is dishing out the IP’s to all workstations, the server and also providing DSL access to each computer.

The log on protocol is a little screwy.

In order to make our VERY finicky office application (Chiro 7000) work properly, I have to have our employee’s log on to their ‘User account’ on THEIR OWN MACHINE and NOT the DOMAIN ‘Chiro’. (when you boot up and come to the log on prompt you get two choices: to log on to an account on “THIS COMPUTER” or “The Domain” We must chose the Domain option or else or cheap application will not work. )

Finally the Question:

I can NOT get any of the Workstations to communicate amongst themselves. All the workstations can SEE one another in “My Network Places” but nothing beyond seeing. No browsing files. (Which is Essential to everyday business). I Get an Access Denied message.

All workstations can totally access the server and all files. No problems here.

I can not understand why the four workstations can see one another but no further access or communication is allowed!? (All workstations C:\ drives are Shared and all User accounts are set to full share as well)

NOW: If I log on any workstation as the ‘Administrator’ everything works FINE. Full access between workstations.??????

I also can’t understand why the user accounts can’t Access each other despite each account having ‘Administrator’ Rights set up.

There must be a way to fix this?!?! Without having all the workstations log on as ‘Administrator’!

Any help would be greatly appreciated! I racked my brain all day on this one.!

Thanks

Doug

 

[Rootz]

As you have installed a NT/2000 domain you should set up all accounts on the server (Active Directory Users and Computers) and then log on to the domain (not local machine).
If you have added the workstations to the domain (seems so) then all local network traffic will pass through domain authentication, this is likely why you get an access denied when browsing through workstations.
To have domain accounting work properly make sure you don't have duplicate domain user accounts with local accounts (just delete local user accounts from the workstations leaving only the administrator accounts).
Hope this helps.

PS
Just an advice, do not share the whole C drive, it's useless, resource sucking, and hazardous for network security... sharing documents folders is better practice for me.

 

[Rootz]

To test if that is the problem you can try logging to any workstation as the DOMAIN administrator (on the domain, again not locally) and see if you have access granted to single computers. You should be able to.

Last thought...
Remove any firewall from local workstations and domain controller, when using a domain architecture firewalls should stay between internet connection and the domain as they can easily block mutual background domain communications (mostly user authentication and group policy replication on wks) without you knowing it.

 

[drdoug26]

Thanks for the tips,

I got it up and runnig fine.

Doug