Helpful information for you all.

[Dos_Box]

Thanks for the link Ric.

This all started last week when working on Rics' network and trying to brink Sophos up to date. Many clients were not updating correctly, or at all and an error message about simple file sharing kept appearing. The following article should be read by all I think and make our lives a better place.

 

http://mcpmag.com/columns/article.asp?EditorialsID=1049

 

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.

[Rozzer]

I have always disabled the firewall that has sorted a lot of my sophos deployment and update issues.

 

Ross

[Dos_Box]

I always disable the Windows firewall on my LAN via GPO. With all of the edcational software we use it causes no end of problems having it enabled.

[marco84]

Does anyone have an idea of where i can turn SFS off in Group Policy??

[Ric_]

Does anyone have an idea of where i can turn SFS off in Group Policy??

 

I could not find the GPO setting (even using the MS spreadsheet) but the regedit can be added to a startup script using the command

regedt32 /S 

(don't have time to link to other post regarding this).

[marco84]

Cheers ric

[Dos_Box]

From the LancsNGfL forum.

 

Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\Security Options

 

Set as 'Classic: local users authenticate as themselves'

[Geoff]

However, setting that in the GPO wont help if the machines are not loading the GPO settings correctly (one of the many problems SFS will cause). By all means set the GPO setting but if you have actively broken machines you'll have to do the registry fix in the login scripts too.

[E1uSiV3]

Interestingly enough, i have not come across this problem, but all of my machines are RISed from an image with XP SP2 slipstreamed...

[tarquel]

I agree E1uSiV3 - not using RIS but the xp ua cd i made has sp2 slipstreamed and unless I've inadvertantly disabled it in the winnt.sif file, I havent had any probs with this either.

 

Regards

N.