Re: Help with Guest account

Hi Seree.

Thanks for the very detailed information! I personally never use the built
in administrator account because enabling it on XP Pro can be a security
vulnerability as it will allow access to shares that have everyone
permissions to for share and folder/NTFS permissions. But just to see I
enabled it and was able to access the internet right away without a problem
as I thought it would work and I noticed that guest could not see any
connections in networking properties just as you described though I did have
networking connectivity. Network configuration is configured at the
"computer" level by an administrator and will then work for any user that
logs onto the computer assuming no software firewall is applying user
specific settings. However the connection settings in IE can vary per user
and if proxy settings are enabled in advanced settings that can cause access
problems for IE. I am still curious if you can create another user account
and logon with that account and access the internet? I also wonder if you
were able to ping or do ipconfig /all for the guest account and what the
results were though I believe you mentioned that you get access denied
errors when you try that as the guest account.

If that is the case that leads me to believe that some process, possibly an
internet "protection" or spyware/malware program, is locking down the guest
account and preventing your access to it even as administrator. If that is
the case then booting into Safe Mode with networking may bypass such
restrictions. Otherwise if an application is doing such lockdown you will
need to logon as administrator and undo those restrictions if that is what
is happening. You also could try using runas to run commands while logged on
as guest to do ping and ipconfig /all which are needed to establish basic
network connectivity.

Having said all that again I do not recommend using the built in guest
account on your computers but instead create another user account that by
default will not be in the administrators group and use that account for a
user that you want to use the computer without advanced privileges. Best
practice is to create a user account for each user that logs onto the
computer. Then each user will have their own profile that can customize the
way they want and the security log will track logon/logoff activity of the
users. You as administrator then can use NTFS permissions to specify which
folders a user can access and which applications they can run.

My bottom line here is that normally the built in guest account when enabled
is not restricted to network connectivity, further testing needs to be done
to determine is basic network connectivity exists for guest account and if
an application or process is interfering with normal access of the guess
account and administrator account but having said that I strongly recommend
that you do not use the built in guest account [keep it disabled] but
instead create other user accounts that are not also administrators.

Steve

"seree" <seree@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:BA3236F3-25EC-40C5-ABD6-C6C515ABC1D2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Good morning Steve, Thanks for responding. I only have a little time this
morning. First, I am not a complete beginner. I am self taught via books
from
Microsoft Press such as Windows XP Inside Out by Ed Bott and others, other
books, Microsoft resourses, etc. The "Guest" account I am referring to IS
the
Guest account, not a limited user account. I have a great Internet
Security
Suite--Panda, there is no Viruses, spyware or other malware on either
computer. I have not had time to ping in the Guest Account in my other
computer as yet, I can't in "MY" computers Guest Account due to the
"Access
Denied" situation. I am unable to do anything in that Guest account. I was
woondering if the "Access Denied" may have something to do with the Corel
photo program attempting to install in "My" Guest account. "MY" referring
to
my computer, the other is my fiance's computer. Sorry if that was not made
clear my having two computers both with problems with the Guest Account.

I first enabled the Guest Account on my computer. It came up with the
access
denied, with the Corel Photo program attempting to install underneath.

Let me tell you a bit about these two computers. The are both XP
Pro-Actually Media Edition 2005. "Mine" is a Dell Dimension 5150, Intel
Pentium D 820-2.8 Ghz, 4 Gigs RAM, 300 SATA Hard drive, ATI video card,
Radean X600 256MB Hypermemory, six months old. The other computer is my
fiance's. It is a 3 month old HP Pavilion a1445n, Pentium D 820-2.8 Ghz, 1
Gig RAM, 200 Gig Hard drive with RAID, NVIDA G Force 62000SE TurboCache
Video card 256 MB. We have a wireless network with the Belkin Pre-N Router
and the corresponding Belkin Adapters. The Network has been functioning
fine
except for a few drops once in a while which I need to address with Belkin
soon. That is a seperate issue. Just thought I would throw it in as it
does
cause problems occasionally and I thought I should mention it just in case
you are aware of anything which it may relate to here that I don't know. I
have configured the Router at 192.168.2.1 in the browser setup page. I
configured WPA-PSK-TKIP, set a good password at the setup page, changed
the
SSID. The Router has four built in ports, an access point, a built in
switch
and of course the firewall. I have an account for both my fiance and
myself
on both computers for the Network. I have a great Internet Security
Suite-Panda. The firewall in Panda is not compatable with the Belkin WPA
so I
do not have it installed, using instead the hardware firewall and the
Windows
Firewall. Monthly I run the Microsoft Live Saftey Scan just to ensure
there
are not any malware which escaped Panda, nothing ever shows up, both
systems
are clean as a wistle. Panda updates every day and performs an automatic
full
scan I configured on both computers. The Routrer has automatic DHCP IP
Address assigning. Niether of these computers have ever been on a
different
Network configuration. I hope this is enough infor for us to get to the
bottom of what is occurring.

Now, I wanted to activate the Guest account when my son came to visit. Two
things occurred. An "access denied" message, and underneath this the Corel
photo suite attempted to install. When I looked into the Event Viewer it
showed several "warning" messages. The basics of these where the Registry
had
not released my Admin Account from use for some odd reason and the other
was
a problem with the Corel suite attempting to install, something about a
installation file missing. I checked the Device Manager to make sure all
drivers where functioning correctly, no errors there. Looking through some
of
the posts here I saw one where a poster who was having a simular "access
denied" in the Guest Account was told that a certain software program may
not
have the proper permissions to run in the Guest Account. So, I was
wondering
if the Corel photo program may have triggered this Access Denied on "MY'
Guest Account.

To check if the situation duplicated itself on my Network I enabled the
Guest account on my other computer. It enabled just fine but does not have
any Internet Connectivity. The Icon for our Network does not appear in the
Notification Area, bringing up the Network connections via the control
panel
just has an empty box. Clicking on IE just gives the "page can not be
displayed" error message. I don't understand why the Guest account does
not
have any Connectivity. Ok, now I hope I have given enough information. If
you
need more let me know. I am off to school. No, I am not a kid, an adult
with
an empty nest after raising eight children (biological and adopted) as a
widow and am now remarrying and going back to school to finish my B.S. in
Phychology of Behavorail Science, with two years to go. Thanks so much for
your response to this problem I am experiancing. Oh, I am self taught with
computers. Some college courses but mostly via books like Winddows XP
Inside
Out by Ed Bott and others, Windows XP Pro, other Microsoft Press books,
books
by other author's who came highly reccommended, the Microsoft websites,
etc.
I am not a beginner, not yet intermediate but coming up on it. I do not
know
much about servers. Again, thanks for all your assistance. Seree


--
seree


"Steven L Umbach" wrote:

OK. Are you talking about the built in guest account or just another user
account. Some refer to any other account as to guest which makes things
confusing. As the administrator can you create another user account and
logon with that account, which will create a new user profile, and access
the internet from that user account? I don't know if it is related to
your
problem but since you mention registry related problems for the
administrator account you may want to install the User Profile Hive
Cleanup
Service on your computer. If you can create another user account that is
not
in the administrators group and access the internet with it then there is
something wrong with the user profile for the user account in question
you
call guest and you will want to scan the computer for malware and
spyware.
AdAware SE is free and works well for spyware if you do not have a
spyware
detection and removal program. For the "guest" account be sure to check
IE
properties and go to connections to make sure it is set the same as your
user account and run the command ipconfig /all to see what it shows
compared
to your user account and try to ping the default gateway IP to see if
that
works or not. What exactly do you mean by My guest account keeps up with
the
Access Denied??

Steve

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=1B286E6D-8912-4E18-B570-42470E2F3582&displaylang=en


"seree" <seree@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:8C61986C-FF9E-489B-AABF-22BA90BF7C04@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Steve, yes I am absolutely sure I am using an administrator account. I
did
use the command prompt to make sure there had not been an error, but I
have
been using this account a long time and am sure what it is. I wrote in
the
post below this one as well in answer to the fellow having a problem
with
the
internet access with the guest account. I need to let you know that so
we
don't go back and forth now between these two posts. My fiance had been
using
dialup, I configured a wireless network with a Linksys Router (yes, I
know
the difference between dialup and a router a hub a hub w/swith, a
router
w/switch is the norm) then changed to a Belkin Router about six months
ago
and it has been functioning very well. I configured WPA, changed the
SSID,
configured it all at the browser setup page located at 192.168.2.1
which
is
the address for the Belkin Routers. I also put in a good password. Now,
the
guest account I enabled on my fiance's comptuer is up and running
without
any
problem except for no internet connection. There is not any icon down
in
the
notification area, I can't access the network connections via the guest
account to see what is up with this and clicking IE result is an "page
can
not be displayed" message. My guest account keeps up with the Access
Denied.
I checked the event viewer and there were several entries sugesting the
registry would not let my Admin account lose for some reason. I tried
accessing the link in help without any luck, have looked this up in my
Windows XP Inside Out as well as other books without any success as
well.
There should not be any reason for either the access denied nor the
lack
of
internet connectivity problems yet there you have it. When I switch
back
to
my admin account everything works fine there. Thanks, Seree
--
seree


"Steven L Umbach" wrote:

Are you sure you are using an administrator account and did you verify
it
with the command I recommended? You can also run the command net user
username using the actual username for your account to see if it shows
that
it is a member of the administrators group under local group
memberships.
Below is the output you should see. Also why do you need to enable the
guest
account?? You can also create other user accounts for other user that
you
want to be able to logon to your computer.

Steve


D:\WINDOWS\system32>net user steve
User name Steve
Full Name
Comment
User's comment
Country code 000 (System Default)
Account active Yes
Account expires Never

Password last set 7/26/2006 11:16 AM
Password expires Never
Password changeable 7/26/2006 11:16 AM
Password required Yes
User may change password Yes

Workstations allowed All
Logon script
User profile
Home directory
Last logon 8/23/2006 3:42 PM

Logon hours allowed All

Local Group Memberships *Administrators *Network
Configuration
*Users
Global Group memberships *None
The command completed successfully.


D:\WINDOWS\system32>

"seree" <seree@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:CF3036A8-962E-4171-AC58-DA64CAD81905@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I enabled the Guest account via my Administrators Account. I click on
the
Guest Account to activate it and I get these problems. I activated
the
Guest
Account on my other computer without any of these problems. Thanks
for
responding.
--
seree


"Steven L Umbach" wrote:

The first thing to check is that you are logged on as an account
that
is
in
the local administrators group because if you are not that would
explain
the
problems. You can use the command net localgroup administrators to
see
members of the administrators group. If you are unsure of how to
open
a
command window then enter cmd.exe in the run box and hit OK.

Steve


"seree" <seree@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:0F3EA070-0501-47A6-875F-EC031AD57C03@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi, I tried starting my guest account but it is giving me an
"access
denied"
message. I am using an administrative account, have Windows XP
Media
Edition
2005, 4 gigs of RAM, an Intel Pentium D processor at 800Mhz. It
is
also
trying to install a Corel photo program but the access denied
error
is
interferring with that process. I am out of ideas on what to do
here.
It
also
won't load my iinternet connection. Help please, thanks to all
who
respond.
--
seree











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