XP Home Access Denied

[kyebean]

I have an XP Home PC that started denying access to other PCs in its workgroup on my LAN. Using the net view command from the other PCs it returns "System Error 5 has occurred: Access is Denied". I can ping it with no problem, so it's not a hardware issue. XP Home forces all network users to use the guest account. I added the guest account to the administrators group and this solves the issue. However, I believe it would be a security risk to leave it that way. So I'm assuming that some permission or similar attribute of the Guest account was inadvertently changed.

From Microsoft's Description of the Guest account in Windows XP:
"In Windows XP Home Edition, all network connections are mapped through the Guest account. If the Guest account is not enabled or if the Guest account does not have the appropriate share permissions, the connection does not work correctly. If the Guest account has sufficient share permissions, but the Guest account has not been assigned NTFS file system permissions, you can use the Guest account to connect to the local computer. However, in this scenario, you cannot access files or directories."

I have been able to access the shared folders when Guest is not a member of Administrators, but I can only access them from shortcuts and it takes abnormally long. If I try to connect to the computer from the workgroup folder or using the net view command it doesn't work unless Guest is a member of Administrators. So it seems that the Guest account doesn't have sufficient share permissions. I think this could be corrected by editing the "permissions" of the Guest account, or maybe the Guests or Everyone groups. I just can't see how to do this in XP Home. I can edit permissions at the folder level, but it seems that I need to edit the "permissions" of the account or groups that pertain to the whole computer. If there was a way to reset the Guest account to its default state that would probably work.

[kyebean]

I've solved the issue I was having. All I had to do was turn off the restrictanonymous setting in the LSA registry key. I think it being on and everyoneincludesanonymous being off at the same time was the problem. I guess being an admistrator overrides something in these settings.

Microsoft Support Solution: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/913628

Explanation: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/l.../bb418944.aspx

[johnwill]

I keep this solution to stick whenever I see this symptom, you just solved yours before I got the chance to post.

Create a file in notepad named FIXANON.REG with the following contents:

You should have 3 boxes on the bottom in NOTEPAD.
1)Filename : FIXANON.REG
2)Save as type: all files
3)Encoding: ANSI
If you do not change it from txt type to All files type, then the file will actually be FIXANON.REG.txt, this won't accomplish the desired result.

------------------- Use text after this line -------------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa]
"restrictanonymous"=dword:00000000
------------------- Use text before this line -----------------

Double click on the file and say Yes to the merge into registry question.

Reboot the computer.