Registered: Aug 2002
Location: Aabybro Dk
Posts: 882

SMB Sharing: The easy way!
Which you can you can use if your on a secure network (behind a firewall) and everyone on the network is trusted.




Goto your "MySharedDrives"
Right click it and select "Sharing and Security..."




Wing of "Share this folder on the network"
You can also wing of "Allow network users to change my files" but its not needed if you only need your Xbox/XBMC to access files.
Click OK


To configure XBMC goto:
Configuring XBMC for SMB easy shares!

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Last edited by TykSak on 13-05-2004 at 19:32

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Registered: Aug 2002
Location: Aabybro Dk
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SMB Sharing: The secure way!
AKA the hard way, where we have XBMC logon to the share using a password other users are denied access to your shares.



Right click on "My Computer" and Select "Manage"
or
Start > Programs > Administrative Tools > Computer Management
or
C:\WINDOWS\system32\compmgmt.msc




Expand "Local Users and Groups"
Right click on "Users" and choose "New User..."




Define "User name" and "Password" (in this guide the user name is xbox and the password is password)
Untick the "User must change password at next logon" box
Tick off the "Password never expires" box
Click create then close




Right click on the newly created "user" and select "Properties"



View the "Member of" tab


Remove "Users" by selecting the "Users" and clicking "Remove".

You can close "Computer Management" now






We will be adding a "rule" for the Xbox/XBMC user

Open Local Security Policy by either going to:
Start > Programs > Administrative Tools > Local Security Policy
or
Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Local Security Policy
or
C:\WINDOWS\system32\secpol.msc


Extend "Local Policies" and click "User Rights Assignment"
Double click the "Access this computer from the network" policy




Click the "Add User or Group"




Add the "xbox" user and click OK

You can close "Local Security Policy" now



Time to turn off simple file sharing


Open an "Explorer" window
Open "Tools" and select "Folder Options..."



View the "View" tab


Find the "Use simple file sharing (recommended)" and unwing it (turning it off)
Click OK




Goto your "MySharedDrives"
Right click it and select "Sharing and Security..."




Enable the "Share this folder"
Click "Permissions"




Select "Everyone" and click remove
Click "Add..."




Type "xbox" and click OK



The Xbox "user" should now be added


Click OK


To configure XBMC goto:
Configuring XBMC for SMB secure shares!

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Last edited by TykSak on 13-05-2004 at 19:35

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Registered: Dec 2004
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I this the "secure way" makes more sense. I get as far as adding the user, but when I try to click on the tab Member of, windows gives me an error saying "The server service is not started". Do you know how I could turn this service back on. It would be greatly appreciated.

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Registered: Aug 2002
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either open a cmd window and type

net start server

or

go into you controlpanel/administartive tools/ Services and find the "Server" Service there and click start

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Registered: Dec 2004
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Thanks for the reply. Unfortunitly, neither worked. When I starting the service from a command prompt i get the following message;

"The service name is invalid".

And when i try looking for the service in the admin tools/services, I cannot find any service thats server related.

I hate to keep bugging you nice folks but I really would like to have my xbox sign into a shared folder on my network. Agian any suggestions would be greatful.

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Registered: Aug 2002
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ok then

try open your network properties on your ethernet adapter and see if you have windows file and printersharing installed

should look something like this attached image

if you don't have it,, click install and find under the "client" options

KeyMaster has attached this image:

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Registered: Dec 2004
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Hello
I am using windows xp home edition and i don't have that option "Local users and groups" in "computer management"

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Registered: Aug 2002
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Yeah XP Home ED is missing some of the "Pro" features but you can still use "SMB Sharing: The easy way!"

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I have followed the instructions posted on here except for the thread titled "Win XP: Mounting your local drives into folders" I could not get this to work properly and I think it is because I upgraded to Windows XP from 98SE and I still have the Fat32 file system. Any way I did the easy share method and I can access folders on my computers hard drive and play the media in them perfectly fine. When I go into the the WORKGROUP [SMB] NETWORK option in XBMC (what I used to access all my shared folders) my CD drives that I have shared show up. The problem is that when I stick a music cd (probably any other one too) into either of the drives and try to access it through the xbox, it shows no files on the disk. The computer doesnt even try to access the drive. Is there anything I can do to get XMBC to access my cd drives? Thanks.

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Try with another CD then a music CD

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Last edited by TykSak on 22-06-2005 at 17:26

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Registered: Jul 2005
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XP wants a password!

Thanks for the great article. I followed the instructions for "SMB Sharing: The easy way!", and now I can see the SMB shares on my Windows XP Home computer, but when I try to open any of the sub-folders, XBMC asks for a password. I don't have any passwords assigned on the machine. I tried entering no password and no name, but that didn't work. I tried my name with no password and had no luck that way either. Any suggestions?

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Registered: Aug 2002
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its hard to say but can you access the shares for another PC?
Did you place the share on C: (try a share on D:/ )

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Re: XP wants a password!

quote:

---

Originally posted by XboxPhred
...when I try to open any of the sub-folders, XBMC asks for a password...

---

The problem was that the guest account was disabled. You must enable it (at least on XP Home). To do that, since XP Home doesn't have the nifty user management console, go to the control panel/User Accounts and make sure Guest is enabled.

Now I can use the SMB Workgroup share option, but I still can't use the shares I created by following the article above. They still show up, but any subdirectories all demand a password.

Another thing to note. If you use the method listed above for sharing removable drives, you won't be able to safely remove them from the system. Windows will keep them locked. Even a utility like the awesome freeware Unlocker won't release them.

Once again, thanks for the help.

Last edited by XboxPhred on 14-07-2005 at 16:14

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quote:

---

Originally posted by XboxPhred

The problem was that the guest account was disabled. You must enable it (at least on XP Home).

Now I can use the SMB Workgroup share option, but I still can't use the shares I created by following the article above. They still show up, but any subdirectories all demand a password.

---

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Registered: Jul 2005
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Mine SMB sharing is not working.

I get following error into xbmc.log:
31-07-2005 23:17:20 ERROR SMBDirectory->GetDirectory: Unable to open directory : 'smb://xbox:password@192.168.0.2/pictures/'
unix_err:'16' nt_err : 'c0000008' error : 'Invalid handle'

I have done all explained in "SMB Sharing: The secure way!" except I don't know how to turn off simple file sharing in windows2000. Could that cause my problem?

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