Hello everyone,
How can i give access or permission others in my network to use some of my FOLDERS what PORTS am i suppose to open for them. Since i started using windows firewall they can not access to my shared folders. We all use Win XP.
thanks,

sharifYou'd need to allow traffic (UDP and TCP) on ports 137, 138 and 139.Hi , i opened those ports last week for the printer and it worked fine now the problem is the shared folders in my PC is not permitting others to use my shared folders, not giving any access REJECTING others to use the share folders.
thanks.
sharifCan the other PCs see the shared folder, but not the contents? Have you given read access to all USERS?I gave full access, but they can not see the shared folders nor my PC, they see nothing the answer is no access, note: every computer have a different name and we all share a Group Name, we had no problems before until we start using this windows firewall.
sharifCan they connect to your computer by typing (e.g.) \\computername in a Windows Explorer address bar? Does the "Find Computer" option work? What happens if you temporarily disable the firewall?Find Computer option works it finds the computer but says this if i try to access " is not accessible you might not have permission to this network resource". But i disabled the windows firewall everything is OK no problems we all can use our resource without any obstacles or hindrance.
Note:
Yes they can connect to my computer by typing (e.g.) \\computername in also Windows Explorer address bar, but i can not contact them as i mentioned unless i disable the firewall. Strange!
sharifWell it sounds very much like the firewall is still misconfigured then.

If you were using ZoneAlarm rather than the Windows XP firewall, you could simply DESIGNATE your LAN as "trusted". Actually it would be quite a good idea to use ZoneAlarm rather than XP's firewall. Neither is a panacea, but ZoneAlarm is better.I checked now the other pc's they can contact me by IE toolbar, Search botton or through the normal way which is My Network Places, but my PC is blocked somewhere i have no access to them nor the IE toolbar, Search or Network places just recjecting one time says check the spelling another time no access.

Thanks again i will take your advice and see how much i can do, my intention was to use the availabe software and the cheapest way to protect old home use PC's.
sharif