How to access windows system on LAN

Question

I have a wireless Access point which is connected to internet and the same being accessing by 2 system, one on windows XP and the other on Ubuntu.

Please let me know if it is possible to access the c:\ d:\ or any drives on windows xp machine directly from ubuntu system ? I have tried doing this with 2 windows xp system but not sure how to do this from ubuntu.

Any help regarding the same is highly appreciated. (reason to do so is to access files in windows xp machine)

-Thanks & regards, Manju

Answer 1

Assuming you have:

• In Windows you shared the resources/folders you want other LAN computers to see
• The Ubuntu computer is on the same network LAN
• The Ubuntu computer is on the same workgroup (Easier to search for other computers)
• From Ubuntu you can ping the computer that is sharing the resources or any other computer on the same LAN.
• In Ubuntu you have samba installed.

Then simply open Nautilus and on the left panel you should see an option that says Browse Network. Click on it and it will show you all workgroups on that LAN. Then simply go into the workgroup where the computer you want to access is.

Remember that if you do not see it and you are using Windows Vista, 7 or 8 you need to make sure what options you have set in the Firewall, Network Options, User permission and a bunch of other layers Windows adds. For this cases, for LAN cases, I disable the Windows Firewall, make sure the Network security does not ask for a password, offers sharing the resource in the network and I even activate the guest user. My idea is to leave Windows Vista, 7, 8 to look like Windows XP when sharing something. But this is more of my opinion on the subject.

Answer 2

If you can access C & D drives from another windows machine, I would assume you have shared these drives.

In that case,

Open Home Folder On top menu, from File -> Connect to Server, Select Type as windows share and give the IP/Hostname of windows machine. You should be able to see the shared drives after giving windows user name and password and access the files.