Can I share my DVD drive with XP Home user on my network

I have Vista Home Premium. I also have a XP Home machine as part of my
wireless home network and I'd like to be able to share my DVD drive (Vista
machine) with my XP Home machine. I have some file that are on the DVD but
my XP machine does not have a DVD drive.

Can I do this and, if so, how in Vista (and in XP)?

Sure. I am accessing the DVD in Vista from my windows 2003. To do that, right click on the DVD drive and select share>Advanced sharing.

If you add the same username on both computers that should work.

Ok, did that and on the XP machine I can "see" the Vista machine on the network but when double-clicked it states I don't have the right permissions to access the machine and to contact the network admin.
Do I also need to do something else on the XP machine (from it's admin account....as I want the standard user to be able to see the DVD drive)?

I, too, am trying to share my DVD burner on my new Vista machine with my
networked Windows XP machine.

Likewise, when I try to access it from the XP machine via my network, I get
the message "DVD Drive is not accessible. You might not have permissions to
use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find
out if you have access permissions. The device is not ready".

The DVD burner works fine on the host PC.

What could be wrong?
What does the "administator" function do and is that me????

The reply said "If you add the same username on both computers that should
work". I'm not even sure what you mean by that - please explain.

I believe what Robert meant was to make sure you have matching accounts on
both PCs. For example, if your login account on your Vista PC is "Dale" and
your password is "123dale", then you should have/create an account on the XP
machine with a login name of "Dale" and a password of "123dale".

does the manual or spec sheet for the drive state that it's network accessible?
Ability to share any computer accessory doesn't come automatically. Things like
writable drives, fax machines, scanners, and similar accessories aren't always
sharable because the manufacturer doesn't make them network usable when they
write the drivers.

If you want to operate a DVD burner through the network, use Remote Desktop,
VNC, or a similar desktop sharing product.

I am also trying to share the DVD-RW drive on the Vista machine with my
other XP machine. The sharing is happening fine (using advanced sharing
in Vista), but my XP machine doesn't understand that this drive is a DVD
drive. Hence, I am unable to read it or write into it. Can someone help?

[BobTheCoward]

You won't be able to burn to a shared DVD drive, since it's exposed to other machines on the network as a Network drive. The client machines have no idea what the underlying hardware architecture is-for all they know it could be a an old Jaz drive connected on the parallel port. The sharing machine exposes the drive as a SHARE...not a DRIVE. Important distinction.

AFAIK, there's no way to do what you're trying to do (though there may be hardware/software solutions out there that do provide burn-via-network support).

"Does the manual or spec sheet for the drive state that it's network accessible?"

What kind of BS response is THAT??

ALL DRIVES are shareable...it's not dependent on the hardware.If Windows sees it as a DRIVE, it's shareable.

Your statements about other devices are accurate, though irrelevant. Poster's question was how to share a drive between Vista and XP, a known difficulty with the changed net architecture on Vista.

And you're an MVP?? Turn in your card.

Is the sharing option enable on the DVD drive? You can do so by right
clicking the dvd drive and choose share>advanced sharing follow by checking
the share this folder box and hit apply and ok

If there's isn't any share option when you did a right click on the dvd
drive, go to network and sharing>media sharing and turn it on

[XLB]

have we made sure our network settings are not set to public?