Windows Vista Firewall
Just in case this ever comes up in casual conversation, I'd like to share some knowledge I just gained.
If you find yourself using the new Windows Vista, for whatever reason, and you're trying to allow file sharing through the firewall so someone can access your share you may run in to a situation where it doesn't work.
File sharing is allowed, but the remote computer still can't access your share. Why? Well it seems that file sharing is only enabled for the local network. Normally on a home network this isn't an issue, but in my case where my desktops and wireless devices are actually on two different subnets, it causes an issue. I couldn't figure out why my desktop couldn't access the share on the Vista laptop, even though the other laptop could.
An additional rule is necessary to allow connections from the computer if it exists outside your subnet. There may be other ways to tweak it, but so far that is the solution I've discovered. Basically I just created a catch all rule which allowed any kind of connection from that specific computer (you could lock it down specifically to file sharing if you wanted) and it worked instantly.
The more you know...
If you find yourself using the new Windows Vista, for whatever reason, and you're trying to allow file sharing through the firewall so someone can access your share you may run in to a situation where it doesn't work.
File sharing is allowed, but the remote computer still can't access your share. Why? Well it seems that file sharing is only enabled for the local network. Normally on a home network this isn't an issue, but in my case where my desktops and wireless devices are actually on two different subnets, it causes an issue. I couldn't figure out why my desktop couldn't access the share on the Vista laptop, even though the other laptop could.
An additional rule is necessary to allow connections from the computer if it exists outside your subnet. There may be other ways to tweak it, but so far that is the solution I've discovered. Basically I just created a catch all rule which allowed any kind of connection from that specific computer (you could lock it down specifically to file sharing if you wanted) and it worked instantly.
The more you know...