Why This Chapter Matters

The purpose of this chapter is to teach you to troubleshoot issues with end users’ access to network or workgroup resources that are caused by permissions restrictions, multiple permissions, group membership, or local or group security policy settings. To troubleshoot these types of access problems, you need to be familiar with each, including how to create different types of shares, view and change settings for a local security policy, view and change settings for a group security policy, and more. The topics in this chapter revolve around working with share permissions, NTFS permissions, local security policies, and Group Policy.

Before You Begin

Before you begin this chapter, you should have basic familiarity with the Microsoft Windows XP interface. You should also have access to a computer running Windows XP on which you can experiment with changing various settings.

Note

The information and procedures in this chapter are based on a default installation of Windows XP Professional. Some of the information and procedures may change if you have installed Windows XP Service Pack 2. Consult Appendix A, “Windows XP Service Pack 2,” and Appendix B, “Changes to Functionality in Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2,” for more details.