Insufficient authorization to see files in shared folder

bvlenci said:

Why am I then able to share files in one direction without a Group? Creating a Home Group just seems to add another network layer, and I don't see why it's necessary. If I create a Home Group, then it looks to me as though the other computers in our network will either have to join it or will be shut out of my resources. At least one of the other computers shares resources with one of mine.

Yep you will need one or the other as Kego mentions or you can play around with the sharing permissions and Security settings but that won't be as secure.

You can only join a Homegroup with the netbook but you can't create one, that's because the netbook has Windows starter. You can use the Desktop to create one. After that you can work with the permission settings to determine which folders you want to share.

I don't see any reason to do this the hard way and it's no wonder you had problems sharing files.

I checked the properties of this computer, and it appears that it *is* part of a workgroup called WORKGROUP. Reading further, it seems that computers must be running Windows 7 to access a Homegroup, and that would shut out other computers that share resources with me. So, I'll stick with the workgroup that I didn't know I was a member of.

Kegobeer, I checked the advanced sharing options and everything is activated except sharing of public folders. The folders I'm trying to share are not public folders.

Fseal, If I have a shared folder on the netbook, I was under the impression that it was shared only with other computers on my home network. Now you've put a doubt in my mind. If I'm away from home and access the internet on a wifi network, would my shared folder be accessible to other people using that wifi network?

I use this shared folder to put things on when I'm away from home that I know I'll want to move to the desktop when I get back home. So, your idea of writing to the desktop wouldn't work, even assuming I could access the desktop from this netbook, which I can't.

I certainly don't want to share the folder with the whole world, so if sharing it implies that, I'll have to go back to the old memory stick.

The only regular users of our network are my husband and I, and we share everything but toothbrushes. Sometimes our kids and other relatives and friends are here, and a collaborator of his in the studio uses one of the computers, but that's OK, too. There's nothing in these folders that needs to be encrypted. I might like to share with "Everybody but Guest" so that my brother-in-law can't see anything...

I'm going to try renaming the workgroup, and I'll report back. I assume that, just for testing, I can rename the group only om these two.

Thanks to all of you who have tried to help me with this problem. It's now been solved, and I thought you would like to hear the story. Bear with me, as I'm translating things from Italian, the language of my system.

1. Today I opened Control Panel, Network Connection Center, where there is a diagram of the network. I noticed a link next to it labeled "View complete map". I had never noticed this before, and it really is the first place I should have looked. None of the troubleshooting pages I had read before coming to this forum suggested I look there. When I saw the complete map, there was my desktop floating out in space, unconnected to any of the other computers. A little digging made me realize that the desktop thought it was connected to a public network, which, of course, as kegobeer noted, would turn off sharing. So I fixed that, but I was still in the same boat. From my netbook, I could see the computer, and also the folder I wanted to share, but when I tried to open it, I still got a message saying I had insufficient authorization.

2. Then I tried renaming the workgroup on both computers, but that didn't help.

3. The I noticed that after having fixed the problem in number 1, there were two folders I could see from the netbook: the one I was trying to share, and the Users folder. I could open the Users folder, and below that I could see Default, Guest, and Public. I could open these folders, and see the subfolders under them. All the subfolders appeared to be empty, though. Under Users, there wasn't my account, just these three. So, on the desktop, I moved the folder I wanted to share into the Default hierarchy, and redid all the sharing permissions. Now I could open the shared folder and see the files. (Originally, I had just hung this folder from the C drive, with no associated user.)

I suppose that, ideally, I should figure out how to share folders that are in the hierarchy of a particular account, but I'm not particularly interested. I've had enough of this in the past two days. I'm just curious, though. Who is the Default account? My own account says that I'm the administrator, but files I put under my account hierarchy don't show up in the Administrator hierarchy. Another thing that puzzles me is that on the netbook I can still see the shared folder in its old position (not under Users/Default) and also in its new position, under Users/Default. The version in the old position appears to be empty, whereas in the new position, I can see and open the files in the folder. On the desktop, it no longer shows up in the old position, because I moved it, not copied.

Anyway, thanks again.