[Samba] windows xp connect to share - cannot change user name from guest

[matthew arnison]

Hi

We've been using samba at my work for ages. Now we have a couple of WInXP
machines. We do not have a domain or anything, the samba server is just
set to user level access control. We log in to windows using the same
username as our account on the samba server. Samba and the windows clients
are set to use unencrypted (plain text) passwords.

The problem is that when we connect to the samba share through the network
neighborhood, WinXP gives a login box which has the user name "guest", and
it is greyed out so that you cannot change it. This is despite the fact
that I am logged into WinXP as "username".

It's only about 10 years since Mac OS figured out that you need to allow
the user to set their username and password when logging into network
drives. Why does it take Microsoft so long to get this right? Win9x/ME
won't let you change the username, but it does atleast use the Windows
login name. WinNT and maybe Win2K do let you change the username. But now
WinXP has regressed to behaviour that is sillier than all of them. Not
only is the username box disabled, the default user name is *different* to
the username you login to WinXP with.

Now there are workarounds. But they seem pretty dodgy to me.

1. Usually (not always) we find we can use "Map network drive..." to set
the username and password, and that logs in OK. After this has been done
*once* per user, the username seems to stick even after logging out of
windows, rebooting etc., and then the network neighborhood login works.
Although the "connect to" login box still displays guest and is greyed
out, it seems to actually send the username from the Map network drive
box.

2. For one user, this didn't work. So we went into the User management
control panel, clicked on her username, then selected "manage network
passwords." You can then Add a password, and if you get the recipe exactly
right, it remembers it and works. (Note that this forces you to save the
password on the Windows machine, this feature is designed to avoid having
to type the password in each time you connect to the network. Tough if you
*want* to type it in each time rather than trust Windows to store it
securely.)

E.g.

Server: \\HOSTNAME\SHARENAME

User name: HOSTNAME\username

Password: xxxxxxxx

You have to get this format exactly right. You can't simply put in the
username, you have to have the HOSTNAME\ bit in front or WinXP complains.
I also tried username at hostname.uni.edu.au, and that didn't work either.

3. I guess you could setup domain security, presumably it lets you avoid
this mess entirely. But that's a fair bit of extra work.

Anyway, I'm writing to see if there's some way that people know to make it
easier. And also to atleast document this craziness. After quite a bit of
searching I couldn't find anything about this on the net, in the samba
pages, or in the archives for this list.

Cheers,
Matthew.