Anonymous access with classic file sharing

How can you enable other machines in the work group to view shared files when classic file sharing is on?

Or

How can you enable people to authenticate when simple file sharing is on.

I'd rather use classic file sharing since it enables the ntfs permissions tabs.

Anyway here's the situation I'm in.

There are 5 computers in the house, 2 of which are mine.
One is my main PC, the other is my laptop.
The laptop and PC have the same username and password.
The other computers belong to other people.

I want to be able to share things with them using ACL (Basically everyone/network/anonymous permissions) and i want my laptop to be able to see everything since i will be able to authenticate.

With classic file sharing i can use administrative shares to access anything i like on my main pc from my laptop like so.
[code:1:6edc081cc1]//mainpc/c$ [/code:1:6edc081cc1]
The only problem is the other pcs in the house cannot access any of my shared files, the second they click my machine in the workgroup they will get a user/pass prompt.

So basically my problem is I want the files i share to be shared with everyone, and i want my laptop to be able to authenticate.

I did that but they can't even access my computer on the workgroup to display the list of shared files
When they try it just asks for a username and password

I know the c$ is adminstrative.
When in classic mode my laptop can access it, thus i can access my pc freely. However no one else can access the folders i choose to share unless they authenticate, i don't want to make user accounts for everyone else on my pc though. I just want them to be able to access the folders i share, and for me to have the option to authenticate and access anything i like.
When simple mode is on you just get a dialog with a popup with guest password so i can't access the adminstrative shares.

Yep i tried that too yesterday, might try it again and reboot.
I pretty much tried everything on google.
I'm sure i've done this before though. It was not a problem at all either. It just worked.
I'm using a pretty fresh install of XP too so there really shouldn't be any problems.

Thanks for help so far!

Laptop - Username Andy
PC- Username Andy

I changed the laptop user name to something different to my PC so obviously i'll get a user/pw prompt.

Now when i try and access my PC i get the pop up box.
Fair enough...

I enter my username and password for my pc...

"You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have taccess permissions."

The odd thing is, when I try and access my laptop from my PC I don't get this message. The box just keeps re-appearing as if the password is wrong :S

Something's just not right, my security event list is totally empty too! lol

Oh bare in mind, the goal I'm trying to achieve is that all users on the workgroup can access the shared resources without any kind of authentication. I don't want a huge userlist on my pc. I'm starting to wonder if you can do with without simple file sharing. Surely there must be a way.

Right!

I'm getting somewhere.

I just managed to access my laptop which has classic fs on from my PC. I logged in as administrator and got access to c$.

Still getting that gay box when trying to access my PC though, at least i have something to work with.
There's a load of fail audits in the security log.

I'll compare the settings of both and see what happens!

All working now!
Haven't a clue why, I only ran the network ID on my laptop.
MY sis's machine can access mine as a guest now. No popup boxes!

Very strange 8O

Thanks for your help man