Hi All,
I really need some help so any suggestions are welcome. I have a Windows XP Pro SP3 machine (fully patched) that won’t share any folders or printers. If I try and share a folder through the properties of the folder I get the error message “An error occured while trying to share whatever. The data is invalid. The shared resource was not created at this time”. If I try to share through the wizard I get “The following error occured while creating the share for Microsoft Windows clients: The data is invalid”. If I try to share an installed printer I get “Printer Settings could not be saved. Operation could not be completed”. Browsing other shares from the affected machine is fine as is access current shares on there (C$ for example)
All of this points to a problem with “File and Printer sharing for Microsoft Networks” but I’ve googled myself close to tears without a successful fix.
Here’s what I’ve tried:
Reinstalling File and Printer sharing and the Client for Microsoft Networks.
Checked all services that may relate to network browsing and sharing are running (Server, Workstation, Comp Browser, Print Spooler, Remote Registry) and that Windows Firewall is disabled.
Tried disabling AV and AntiMalware programs and trying again- No Joy.
Uninstalled SP3- no joy.
Updated NIC drivers and no joy.
Booted into SafeMode (with and without networking and tried to share but no joy. Also used MSConfig to diable all startup programs and no joy.

There’s tons of room left on the hard drive. It’s not encrypted or compressed.
Ran AV and Malware scans that came up clear.
There’s probably things I’ve done that I can’t remember to fix this but I’ve been at it for hours so mind is gone a little. Oh- by the way. Tried System Restore but that fails. There’s plenty of restore points but running a restore to an older point in time fails. Even if it was working there’s no way of knowing when the problem started because it’s not really a regualr task to create a file share or printer share on an XP client machine.
So….. What do you think??? Full rebuild not an option because I’m stubborn on this. I really don’t want to sell out to the old rebuild.
Thanks in advance for all that reply!
R RW2887 — Windows — Reply

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Unable to share folders and Printers!!

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