Vista cannot authenticate when trying to attach to a file share (SMB) on our old 10.2 Mac Xserve. Fixing the problem involves weakening the security of Vista file sharing, but we're all friends here behind the firewall, right?

I stole these instructions from z3r010 on vistax64.com:

1. Open the Start Menu.
2. In the white line (Start Search) area, type regedit and press Enter.
3. Click Continue for UAC prompt.
4. In regedit, go to:-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlLsa

5. In the right pane, right click LmCompatibilityLevel and click Modify.
NOTE: If it doesn't already exist, create a DWORD value named LmCompatibilityLevel

6. Set the value to 1
7. Reboot

*UPDATE 8-25-2009 – I just had this same problem in Windows 7 and this solution fixed it. -Kris-

Create new string value subkeys:
DefaultUserName
DefaultPassword
DefaultDomainName

Change: AutoAdminLogon = 1

If it exists, delete the AutoLogonCount key

Remember, if you are not part of a domain, you can setup autologin by using the netplwiz command in the search box.

Synergy through SSH, not as hard as I thought it would be.

1. The first step is to get Synergy working without SSH…I'm not going to cover that here.
2. I used Leopard as a Synergy server, and setting up an SSH server on Leopard is as easy as going to System Preferences > Sharing and checking "Remote Login."
3. With Vista as the client, I installed PuTTY and followed this guide for setting up a Synergy SSH tunnel between your mac and PC. I'll give you the theory in a nutshell: Set up the tunnel from the Vista IP to the Leopard IP using port 24800. Connect the tunnel, then log into Leopard from Vista using the command shell. This brings me to the next step…
4. Change the Vista Synergy client to log in through the tunnel. This is done by changing the "Other computer's host name" to 127.0.0.1 (localhost).

I was amazed. Following the guide linked above, and starting from a working, non-SSH synergy setup, it worked for me the first time I tried it. I even used a packet sniffer to check that the communication was encrypted. The only problem I found was that I lost control of Vista from Leopard if I clicked on the PuTTY window. Plus, the PuTTY shell window is in the way. To solve these problems I use Trayconizer. It minimizes to the system tray in Vista.