Windows 7: Win7 and Linux machine won't talk to each other

Hi,

I'm trying to do a restore on a XPh machine on the LAN, using a Paragon Backup linux boot disk. In Paragon's Network Configurator, by drilling down I can see the other XPh machine on the LAN, but though the Win 7 machine is seen, no folders are revealed.

On the Windows 7 machine I have three locations that are shared - one on the system disk and two on a USB disk. The USB disk holds the backup image I want to use. I have it set to Shared, for Everyone, and Everyone has read/write permissions at the least (under Share it only says Read/Write; under Permissions I opened it up to Full Control temporarily).

It seems the bottleneck here is on the Windows 7 side. Can anyone see cause of the problem?



Thanks,
p.

To share out an entire drive with Windows 7 you need to take an extra step beyond the standard sharing permissions.

You need to go into the Security tab of the drive and allow "Everyone" access by adding Everyone to the access list like in the picture below. Be sure and hit the apply and ok buttons once you change the settings for the authenticated users. That should get you full access to the drive. You can change it back after you get what you need.

Adding further to my confusion, I booted the XPh machine to a new install of XPh, changed the Workgroup to the common one here, rebooted and tried to connect to the Windows 7 machine. It prompted me for a password, which I couldn't understand, as I hadn't put one on the XPh machine yet. But it was looking for the user/pass of the Windows 7 machine! When I entered that I gained access to the shared folders.

Why on earth would a network machine need, or be allowed to have, the credentials of another machine/user? This appears to fly against all common sense.

The Windows 7 folder is set to Everyone. Why is authentication being required at all?

p.

Hi Chev,

The backup image I want to access is in a folder on the external drive. As it is, I can't even see the folders, let alone access them. Plus, I think my permissions are already lavish. I'm attaching a capture.

Thanks,
p.

As for getting to linux from win 7 this might help.

Three Ways To Access Linux Partitions (ext2/ext3) From Windows On Dual-Boot Systems | HowtoForge - Linux Howtos and Tutorials

I may have discovered why the Windows 7 authentication was required on the XP machine. The user name in both places was the same. So when I entered the name, XP insisted on prepending the Windows 7 machine's name to it. I just changed the user name on the XP machine, and to view the Windows 7 folders now I had to enter the XP login, as it should be. If this is the driver of that error, I would call it a bug. No two users on the same workgroup can have the same name?

Thanks, Chev, but that appears to be only distantly related to my problem. Neither machine here can access the other, and Windows 7 doesn't even see the linux boot disk machine.

I've never been able to access a Windows machine without creds, at not NT based Windows. Have you allowed Guest access ?? That might help. It's supposed to anyway.

I think you nailed the problem. I was just looking at this, and I realized that the boot disk, while on the LAN, is not a member of the Workgroup. Since there is no workgroup facility on the boot disk, somehow Windows 7 has to be loosened up further to allow any LAN machine access. I think the answer is to temporarily switch it to being a Homegroup machine. Let me dig deeper.

p.

Still stumped. Even dropping down to a Homegroup didn't open it up. Nor did making Everyone the folder's owner.

I don't think Guest will help. Under Permissions/Add(or edit, not sure)/Advanced, do a Find and you will see that Guest is a member of the Windows 7 machine that hosts the folder to be shared. I think Everyone would be broader than that.