XP As LAN Server questions; IOS, Win7, etc

any network aces here?

I'm setting up a windows xp pro sp3 machine as server for my home/office network - the plan is to use it for offloading IOS devices, Win7/8 systems with SSD's, and 'droids. I have IIS loaded and running and simple sharing on a "Share" folder on the primary Volume works ok. But I need full access to a lot of files stored on the second Volume on the XP system - tools, media, etc accumulated over several years. In short, I want full access to whatever folders are there, short of Remote Desktop which I don't find all that useful [it works - I have Remote DT running on both ends, but its not the optimal way for us to operate].

A simple question: I have reset ownership of the entire D: drive [physically the bigger and older of the two HDD's], and then set a couple of heavily-used folders to be shared. However when I try to browse those folders over the wire from my main Windows 7 system - I discover them OK but do not have access to them. I was sort of expecting to be challenged for credentials to authenticate but I don't get that, I just get the standard "you do not have permission ..." return message. I've checked the standard instructions for setting permissions etc and all should be swell, but it ain't.

what am I missing?

a secondary issue: to be able to stream media files effectively to my devices, will the XP system suffice as-is or do I need to install a "media server" package to help?

 

You should see if the system is compatible with freenas as xp support is nearly done.

 

I am the support on things windows, android, a little IOS and osx.
I don't care to learn linux hackery at this point -love android but freenas doesn't know what to do with an ethernet device apparently.

I have the rig running pretty well now but its got security holes. the win7/8 machines and the other xp resident have no issues thus far.
just examining what sort of app/server wares to use for the ios devices. android is a breeze for this rig - everything managed from the 'droid device using the very excellent es file manager. in the IOS world, the whole mindset is different and assumes no one in their right mind would want to stream anything off a windows server :-D. But the "FileExplorer" app on IOS7 comes pretty close: required nothing on the server end [so far] - just found it right off and exposed everything the way I would hope to see. has its own media player built-in [apparently... it may be hooking iTunes somehow]... and to my utter amazement will play [at least mp3's] straight from the folders, sequentially, without complaining or inventing random playlists.

we'll see how it shapes up. hope to add RAID 10 at some point but right now just using the hdd's i had available. zero added expense so far.