Catch 22 ? XP and profiles

A friend of mine is having problems getting users to logon on to a xp box which is wkgrouped with another box. he has set the profiles up on box A and can't login from box B as a user but can as admin

i have suggested that this is because as a workgroup the user needs to recoonect the network links to get the profile but can't connect the lionks till they logon and can't logon till they get a profile. Am i right ?

Here is his scenario - quoted :

Right now, the XP box is networked to one other computer. Until I get more machines, or whatever route I decide to do. It is XP Pro. I am also hosting a local network site until I get up & running & then in the future I will utilize the DNS hosting it can do. Of which XP Pro can host one website. Both systems use XP Pro, so there shouldn't be a OS compatiblity problem there. It has IIS installed on the main system. Simple workgroup is what it is, nothing profound. The network was working quite well here recently.

I beleive the problem orginated when I create a user & wanted to change where it's home directory was located. I beleive you would go to the computer management area, select the user & choose advanced. Generally, it doesn't have where the home directory for that particular user is located. But it does give the option to change where it is. I chose to locate that users home directory on a seperate hard on the machine. (Same machine) I was going to make, (if it worked) more users have their home directory be there. The idea was kinda like a roaming profile to a certain extent. I know that XP doesn't do the domain roaming profile, you need a server OS.
Now, I don't know if the problem resides there, began there, or whatever, but I beleive it occurred soon after that change.
Now, since then I have deleted that particular account & have created subsequent new ones. Now, let's note that I only edited one users home directory. I have gone in to that area again & again making sure that it doesn't have the home directory changed on them as well.
The admin can log on to the main machine locally & as well can make changes on this machine from the other one also. It of course would require user/pass to be entered. A user on the second machine can go into the main machine & open/run/etc files from the second machine. (via the network)

The ones who can't log on are users on the local machine that I created them on. If I look at the logon area, it will show their name & icon, I will select it & in a few short seconds it tells me that it can't find the profile so even a desktop never opens up. But an admin account will log right on. This happens whether it's plugged into a network on not.

 

Are these all XP boxes? Even if they are their profiles will not download to the each individual WS unless you have a server. They each have to have profiles set up locally in a workgroup type of setting. Check into Active Directory and user permission in the help section, it might shed some light on the situation.