Scenario – you have an existing home or office network with Win XP loaded on machines doing file and printer sharing. Basic workgroup environment. You purchased a new laptop or a desktop with Win Vista preloaded and bring it home and introduce it to the workgroup. [Assuming that you do everything right, you will be able to share files and folders, but not the printer] You will be able to see the printer in the network, but when you try to connect to it, you will very likely get an error saying “windows could not connect to the printer, access denied”.

Here is how to get it to work.

1. On the new vista machine go to printers in control panel and add new pritner.
2. select local pritner, instead of network/shared printer [don't ask me why].
3. create a new local port and give it the network name. i.e. if the name of your host computer that has the printer hooked up to it is JacksPC and the shared name of the printer is Brother4150, then the network name for this shared resource is \\JacksPC\Brother4150 click next.
4. Click next and install the drivers for Vista, by selecting have disk. [assuming that you have downloaded the drivers of the printer for Vista.] and it should work.

Let’s set the parameters first. Suppose you have two machines; one at your work which has Windows XP Pro loaded, [we will call it the Remote Machine] and the other machine being your new Toshiba notebook with Windows Vista Ultimate on it [we will call it the host machine]. Variable – You have a Wireless router on both the remote and host network.

Step 1. On the host machine, set a user account with log in password. Assign administrator group rights to this account. If you already have an account in the remote machine, make sure you are a member of the administrator group.

Step 2. Assign a static IP to the remote machine. eg.- 192.168.100.100 [please make sure the IP is within the DHCP server's range in the router]

Step 3. Log in to your wireless router, and create a port forwarding rule in the port forward table of the router, to the static IP that you have assigned to your remote machine. [see the eg. ip above] Windows remote desktop uses port 3389, and TCP packets. Do not forget to save your changes in the router

Step 4. On the remote machine, go to system properties and turn on remote desktop. Click on the radio button and save.

Step 5. On the remote machine, if you have windows firewall on, or any other firewall on, make sure you put remote desktop in the exceptions list of the fire wall. Save changes.

Step 6. Check the public IP of your network. Easiest way is by going to the URL whatismyip.com Note down the public IP of your network. You will need this and log in ID and PW of this remote machine. Do not shut down or log off your remote machine.

Step 7. Go to your host computer, [on a different network. like say when you get home from work] and type mstsc on the run command.

Step 8. On the remote desktop connection console, type the public IP of the computer in the computer field. Click the Options button and type the user ID and the PW in the required field. Hit connect and if you are prompted with any warning signal, just ignore them. You should now be able to connect to the remote machine from your laptop.

NOTE: Turning off UAC reduces the security of your computer and may expose you to increased risk from malicious software. However, clicking Yes on the prompts without reading them is the same as turning them off. Do you read all the prompts that UAC pops up before you click on Yes? I guess it will depend on how strrong your nerd meter reads. I know what I am doing, so I turn off the warning that UAC provides.

For Vista Business and Ultimate versions:

your account needs to have admin rights in order to do any of this. If you are unable to do this, then the account in which you are logged in as is not an admin account.

On the search box of windows, type Local Security Policy- Search result is a the new Management Console for Vista. You will see a window divided in two panels. Right Hand side, and a Left Hand side. On the LHS you wan to click to expand the local policy. Then select Security Options to bring out a list of policies on the right hand side panel. Once you see the list, click on the top bar to sort by reverse alphabetic order. So now your list should start with items listed with U alpha.

Now locate “User account control: Behavior of the elevation prompt for Administrators in Admin Approval Mode”. Double click to open it, and from the drop down menu select, Elevate without Prompting.

There are two other policies that you may want to look at. I have attached a pic of how it looks in my PC for you to compare. DO NOT mess up other items, or else your new PC might not work properly.

For Vista Basic and Home Premium:

On these versions, you can only turn off the UAC [User Access Control], which asks for every small little thing, like Do you really want to pee, – Yes, any doubt.  =) MS did not include the Security Policies tool box in these version, so it is not possible to tweak some other features, like you saw being done above.

But, if you are a entry level User, then I would recommend not turning UAC off, as it may put your system at risk, provided you read all the warning signs that it pops up.

To turn off UAC

Source: technet @ MS

1. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
2. In Control Panel, click User Accounts.
3. In the User Accounts window, click User Accounts.
4. In the User Accounts tasks window, click Turn User Account Control on or off.
5. If UAC is currently configured in Admin Approval Mode, the User Account Control message appears. Click Continue.
6. Clear the Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer check box, and then click OK.
7. Click Restart Now to apply the change right away, or click Restart Later and close the User Accounts tasks window.

Alternately, if you are running the Basic or Home Premium version, then you can also modify the registry to achieve the goal. Some people like hacking the registry in good old ways. =) So I have compiled a registry key hack, that you can download and run. Download it here System.reg Once you have downloaded it, rename the file name from System.reg.txt to System.reg and run it. Finally reboot your computer and see if it wroks for you.