Windows 7: user account blocking network access

I have 5 computers on 2 networks (home and Log Me In Hamachi2 VPN) and they can all connect to eachother flawlessly as long as none of them are logged on with my user account. I have a user account on 3 of the 5 PC's and when logged on to any of the 3 with my account and I try to access any of the other 2 PC's that I also have a user account, I get the following:

\\computername is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions
The network address is invalid.

I can access the 2 boxes that I dont have a user account while logged on with my user account from any of the 3 with my user account. Its definitely a user account issue. Is there a possible name conflict? I cant figure it out and nothing similar with google.

4 boxes are win 7 pro 64 and one is vista home premium 64

Are you certain that the computer names are all different on every machine?

Are they all part of the same Workgroup?

Yes all computer names are different. I had that issue when I networked a clients office for digital radiography. He bought 4 dell boxes and they all had the same computername which was an issue.

My user account names on each computer is the same. Tried renaming my user account and nothing changed.

As for the work group, the 4 win 7 boxes are WORKGROUP and the Vista box is MSHOME as it was part of an old network. I never bothered changing it because I can access its shared folders and it can acess all machines on WORKGROUP. the issue is only between the win 7 boxes.


Let me see if I can make it a little clearer an we will deal with only 2 win 7 boxes on Workgroup.

Box A cannot access shares on box B when I am logged in with my user account.
Box A will access shares on box B when I am logged in under a different user account. (I just added a second user account. Didn't configure anyting)

I ran network diagnostics under my user logon and under the shared folders test I enter the path \\BoxB\users and get the following results:

Verify the permissions settings on "users"

You dont have permission to access the share.

I then switch users to the newly created user account and run the same dignostics and Windows cannot identify the problem (because there is no problem).

It seems that there is some setting or parameter in my user account causing box b to reject my attempt to access. I dont think it is a permissions setting in box B as the secong user account had no problem accessing. its not hardware related. What do I look for?

once I get this one resolved maybe all the other issues will go away.

well after some digging around I found the reason for the other computers not being able to access my main is I dont use a password to log on to my main computer and by default windows wont allow a network connection to a no password protected computer untill you make a security policy change or enable a logon password.

Where was that topic in the windows help files?

Here is what I found relating to an XP computer with the same issue. the solution works for 7 also but the roadmap to local policies is a little different.

Thanks to the person who posted this, I wish i could give you the credit you deserve but i cant remember where i got it from and who posted it.

To allow users to log onto their computers without a password and then access the XP Professional machine without a password, you must make a security policy change:

1. Go to Control Panel | Performance and Maintenance | Administrative Tools | Local Security Policy.
2. Expand Local Policies | Security Options.
3. Double-click Accounts: Limit local account use of blank passwords to console login only, which is enabled by default. Disable this option and click OK.
this stopped the network access dialog box appearing when tryin to access my xp machine from windows 7 ! !

Congrats on getting it to work but doesn't that lower the security and make it highly unsafe if this workgroup is on the internet?

Thats funny because I set up sharing with my Win 7 and XP pro machine countless times and never needed to set up any type of password at all. No login password no network password and I could always access which ever files I wanted.