XP Security Issue

From: John Coutts (administrator@yellowhead.com)
Date: 03/01/03 

From: administrator@yellowhead.com (John Coutts)
Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2003 19:06:05 -0000

I just received a new computer. I wanted Windows 2000 installed on it, but the
company I purchased it form said that the package was only available with XP. I
haven't decided yet if I will keep XP or install 2000. After much work, I
finally got the user interface so that it is somewhat reasonable (that standard
kiddyland interface is the pitts), but there seems to be a lot of deficiency in
the network side of things.

There does not appear to be any way of using passwords on Netbios connections,
and the NTFS permissions are not accessible on the home version. Any shared
directories seem to be completely open. To verify that, I went to a different
network and attempted to connect to one of the shared directories that are set
up by default (SharedDocs, which is C:\Documents and Settings\All
Users\Documents\). It seems that I can connect to it from anywhere, and what
makes matters even worse is that I cannot change it except by editing the
registry. Am I missing something, or is every XP system connected to the
Internet just as vulnerable?

J.A. Coutts
Systems Engineer
MantaNet/TravPro