A friend of mine called me yesterday and told me that there appears to be a major bug in Vista File Sharing on Peer to Peer setups. It appears that when you create a File share on a Vista Machine and it is accessed by 2 Vista machines simultaneously, it will cause the file to appear corrupted or system hangs. He then pointed me to this website Major Bug In Vista File Sharing where there was an extensive discussion on the problem. Below is a reproduction of the issues highlighted :

Scenario 1

1. Computer A is installed with Vista (Any Version) and creates a File Share "Shared Data" with a word document or access database
2. User on Computer A opens the word document
3. Computer B is also installed with Vista (Any Version) and accesses the same word document in \\ComputerA\Shared Data .
4. Computer B will hang (lock up) and will fail to respond completely until the word document in Computer A is closed.

Note: The same scenario will occur if you open any other documents or database in Computer A first

Scenario 2

1. Computer B accesses the word document in \\ComputerA\Shared Data
2. Computer A accesses the word document in Shared Data without any problems
3. Computer C (also installed with Vista) accesses the word document in \\ComputerA\Shared Data will hang (lock up) and fail to respond completely until the word doucment in Computer A is closed.

Scenario 3

1. Computer D is installed with Windows XP and creates a "Shared Data2" folder with a word document in it
2. Computer D accesses the word document in \\ComputerD\Shared Data2
3. Computer A accesses the word document in \\ComputerD\Shared Data2 without any problems
4. Computer B accesses the word document in \\ComputerD\Shared Data2 without any problems

The solution to the problem is now available through a Microsoft Hot Fix as described in KB article 935366 . However please note that the fix is not available as a public download. Users who are affected by this bug will need to call Microsoft Customer Support for the fix. It is not distributeable and is free if you request for hotfix KB 935366. It is anticipated that the hot fix will be available in Vista SP1.