Windows Tip Sheet
Stop That File Sharing!
Installing XP SP2 can sometimes cause Simple File Sharing to turn on and conflict with GPOs. Here's a workaround.
This tip is part 1 in a series of 5 on living with Windows XP Service Pack
2.
Windows XP SP2 is undoubtedly a great upgrade to WinXP, but it does introduce
a few complications in any environment. Reader Aaron Spurlock writes in with
this issue:
"It appears that WinXP SP2 turns simple file sharing back on for all
computers, including those in a domain environment. It has caused me to rip
my hair out several times wondering why I can't push anti-virus updates, why
group policies aren't functioning, and why I cannot remotely administer computers."
After some back-and-forth and some virtual machine-based testing, we determined
that adding XP to a domain turns Simple File Sharing (SFS) off, as it should;
adding SP2 left SFS off. Just adding SP2 left SFS in its default state of on,
and joining to the domain turned SFS off. Perfect. However, one of Aaron’s
clients had just installed a computer from SP2-slipstreamed media and joined
the computer to the domain—and SFS was left on. Weird.
Aaron’s solution was to deploy a batch file logon script that imports
a registry file. Here’s the file he used:
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa]
"forceguest"=dword:00000000
Ironically, you can control this setting from within a Group Policy object
(GPO), but with SFS turned on, GPOs can’t download and apply properly.
Oh, well. If you’ve got more insight on the SFS on-or-off problem, drop
me a line at [email protected].
In the meantime, hopefully Aaron’s reg hack will help anyone who’s
been dealing with this.
More Resources
- Read more about SFS here.
- A quick guide to SFS can be found here.
- Instructions for manually configuring SFS can be found here.
About the Author
Don Jones is a multiple-year recipient of Microsoft’s MVP Award, and is Curriculum Director for IT Pro Content for video training company Pluralsight. Don is also a co-founder and President of PowerShell.org, a community dedicated to Microsoft’s Windows PowerShell technology. Don has more than two decades of experience in the IT industry, and specializes in the Microsoft business technology platform. He’s the author of more than 50 technology books, an accomplished IT journalist, and a sought-after speaker and instructor at conferences worldwide. Reach Don on Twitter at @concentratedDon, or on Facebook at Facebook.com/ConcentratedDon.