I'm sorry, but that's how Windows XP Home Edition works when it's installed on an NTFS disk partition. It blocks access to the Program Files and Windows folders and to individual users' folders within Documents and Settings.
You can share subfolders within those folders, e.g. you can share "C:\\Program Files\\Outlook Express" or "C:\\Documents and Settings\\Username\\Desktop" and access that folder from another computer on the network.
If you had Windows XP Professional, you could disable simple file sharing, which would remove those sharing restrictions. Since you have Windows XP Home Edition, that option isn't available The safest thing is to share individual subfolders, as mentioned above, or to move files into the Shared Documents folder, which was designed for that purpose and is accessible over the network.
You can re-install the operating system on a FAT or FAT32 disk partition -- those disk formats don't have any sharing restrictions. However, that would lose the benefits of NTFS, which is more reliable and efficient and can use larger disks. You'd also need to re-install all of your applications.
I've heard of two possible solutions for XP Home Edition on an NTFS disk partition, but:
- They're un-supported, un-documented, and un-tested by Microsoft.
- There's no guarantee that they'll work.
- They might cause data loss or corruption.
I haven't tried them, and I don't know whether they're safe. If you want to try them, at your own risk:
- Back up your important data first so that you can restore it in case of problems.
- Run System Restore to create a restore point that you can go back to in case of problems.
Here they are:
- Start Windows XP in "Safe Mode with Networking" (which temporarily disables "Simple File Sharing"), share the desired folder(s), set the permissions, and reboot normally, or:
- Follow the procedure shown here: