XP pro file sharing issues

[Sinner Dragoon]

I have 5 computers in my house a file server running XP pro, two others running pro and the other 2 running XP home. I want to set it up so that only I can access shared folders on my file server from my laptop and my room mates cant.

I am not running any fire walls on my computers and windows security is disabled.

I am a pretty savvy user of XP home. I just recently got my hands on pro and never used it before. I know they are pretty much the same however My problem with XP pro is with the advance file sharing. (I have disabled simple file sharing.)
When it comes to setting permissions for other computers on my network so that only certain files can be accessed by certain users my computers don't want to recognize that there are other computers on the network.
IE when I go to sharing | Permissions | Add | Locations.. I don't see any other computers other than the host computer.

How can I fix this so that I can see all the computers on my network.

[lawrence.cook]

You don't need to see the other computers when setting up permissions.
On your file server, go onto the permissions (security tab) of the files/folder you want to share.
Remove the everyone group. (make sure you don't just tick the deny box because that will cause you problems)
Give access permissions to a password protected user account.(which will be a local user account on your file server)
When you want to view files from another computer, the easiest way is to click Start, and right click on 'my computer', and then 'map network drive', where you should see a link/button somewhere that says 'connect using a different username/password' or something to that effect.
Enter the user and pass that you gave permissions to on your file server and voila!
Your mates shouldn't be able to see your files, unless you give them the username and password

[Sinner Dragoon]

Ok that work out a lot better thank you. I'm figuring it out now. once I get Pro installed on all my roommates computers I'll be able to do this on all the computers and make it easy for them to share stuff.

Thanks a lot.

[lawrence.cook]

BTW, you dont need XP pro to enable file sharing, if you want to share in home, go the same way about it, but goto the sharing tab instead, and click on the advanced sharing button, where it is similar, but the only three permissions are Change, Read, Full control, but then you can still change users and groups through that!

[johnwill]

To restrict who can connect to your computer, use a 3rd party firewall and limit access to only those you desire to have it.