remote commands to another xp machine

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.security_admin (More info?)

A small update - ignore the paragraph about "The second oddity....." It's no
longer the case. Both computers prompt the same and report the same ERROR.

"Marsha" <mg1394@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:e$4mYMTUFHA.3532@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> First, please redirect me to the correct subforum if this isn't the proper
> one to help me.
>
> I have a network of 6 machines (workgroup, not domain) all running XP SP2.
> Everything works just fine, lots of shares, internet access, etc. I have a
> user account (same name and pw) on all machines that is the same and has
> administrator privledges. Also there is an Administrator account with the
> same pw on each machine.
>
> I'm trying to do low level control of machines and running into stuff I
> don't understand about logon access and other related problems - so I have
> a number of questions, but I'd like to start simple. That works best for
> me.
>
> I have 2 workstations (alpha and beta) both with xpsp2. If I try to use
> the command "systeminfo /s beta" from alpha, I get a prompt for password
> (using my local account on alpha. I then get "ERROR: Logon failure:
> unknown user name or bad password." If I put either local accounts (on
> alpha) or accounts on beta (using beta\name and password) I get the same
> results.
>
> The second oddity with this simple activity is doing the same operation
> from beta always results in the error message "The RPC server is not
> available" after a long timeout. MSKB indicates this is the result of beta
> not being able to contact alpha, but it does pings fine, looks at shares
> just fine, etc.
>
> As a small aside, I connected a laptop running win2k to the network, and
> from alpha I can give the command "systeminfo /s laptop" and it works just
> fine.
>
> What am I doing wrong, and where can I learn more about how to debug
> problems at this level? Articles, this forum, etc.
>
> Thanks
>
>