I was installing Windows Vista Business version on my Macbook to test-run Vista through Bootcamp. I tried to get it to connect to a password-protected shared folder on another Windows XP desktop. So I followed what I always did in the same situation when I was using a Windows XP desktop:

1. Go to Windows Explorer
2. Type the path to the shared folder on the server machine (e.g. \\xp\abc) on the address bar
3. It should prompt for my username and password to access this password-protected folder.
4. Connected and you can browse the files.

But in Vista, I just could not find a way to see the username & password prompt. I got this: So I tried to dig around for the solution on the Internet and the best I could figure out is to run this command in a command window(press Windows Key+R and then type "cmd" and press Enter): net use Z: \\xpmachine \abc2 * /USER:joe /Persistent:YES Assuming "xpmachine" is the Windows XP computer name, the shared folder is called "abc" and the usename to access this shared folder is "joe". Press Enter and it will prompt you for the password and after you enter it then you can access the shared folder on "Z:" drive (and you can change it to "V:" or other unused letters). The "/Persistent:YES" option is used so that next time you log into your Vista desktop, "Z:" will still be mapped to the "abc" shared folder but when you try to access it in Windows Explorer, this time will give you the nice password prompt, just like in Windows XP: You can read more on the "net use" command by running "net help use" in the command window.