Local Network Sharing Issues

I have a USB 3.0 drive. I am trying to share it with the entire network.

I go to Properties->Sharing

Share is greyed out. So I click 'Advanced Sharing'
'Share this folder' is checked.

I click Permissions, I select 'Everyone' then below in Permissions for Everyone, I have "Read" checked under the Allow column.

The end result: there are three computers on my network. Myself and two others I am trying to share this drive with. One of them is able to view the drive and read its contents completely. The other computer is only able to see the drive in Network, but when it tries to enter that folder it gives the access error and doesn't allow them to proceed further.

So as per this tutorial: https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...rmissions.html

I went to the Security tab in the properties window for that drive, click Edit, Add, type 'Everyone', click OK, thenin Permissions for Authenticated Users I made it read only. I click OK.

At this point it comes up with some promopt that says "setting security information on" and below that it shows a list of files and folders as it rapidly scans through them.

It scans through a bunch but it clearly does not scan through anything close to all the files and folders on that drive. Then it stops. At this point, the computer with the access problems is able to access the stuff that that prompt scanned through, but nothing else. For other folders, it'll give the access error when trying to open them.


All three computers are running Windows 7. Why the inconsistent network access behavior and why is it failing to propagate the settings through the whole file/folder structure? And why does it need to do it anyway? If the other computer accesses everything on the drive without issue, why does the other computer need this?

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

sharpnova said:

I have a USB 3.0 drive. I am trying to share it with the entire network.

I go to Properties->Sharing

Share is greyed out. So I click 'Advanced Sharing'
'Share this folder' is checked.

I click Permissions, I select 'Everyone' then below in Permissions for Everyone, I have "Read" checked under the Allow column.

The end result: there are three computers on my network. Myself and two others I am trying to share this drive with. One of them is able to view the drive and read its contents completely. The other computer is only able to see the drive in Network, but when it tries to enter that folder it gives the access error and doesn't allow them to proceed further.

So as per this tutorial: https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...rmissions.html

I went to the Security tab in the properties window for that drive, click Edit, Add, type 'Everyone', click OK, thenin Permissions for Authenticated Users I made it read only. I click OK.

At this point it comes up with some promopt that says "setting security information on" and below that it shows a list of files and folders as it rapidly scans through them.

It scans through a bunch but it clearly does not scan through anything close to all the files and folders on that drive. Then it stops. At this point, the computer with the access problems is able to access the stuff that that prompt scanned through, but nothing else. For other folders, it'll give the access error when trying to open them.


All three computers are running Windows 7. Why the inconsistent network access behavior and why is it failing to propagate the settings through the whole file/folder structure? And why does it need to do it anyway? If the other computer accesses everything on the drive without issue, why does the other computer need this?

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

It looks like you have the sharing permissions set up correctly though it may help if you take ownership of the drive.

Take Ownership Shortcut

Thanks but I'm just trying to find out what I'm doing wrong here and why I'm getting nonstandard behavior.

Definitely not interested in downloading anything. Windows 7 should be able to support the task of sharing a drive with two other computers on a local network both using the same version of windows.

sharpnova said:

Thanks but I'm just trying to find out what I'm doing wrong here and why I'm getting nonstandard behavior.

Definitely not interested in downloading anything. Windows 7 should be able to support the task of sharing a drive with two other computers on a local network both using the same version of windows.

Actually if these files were created by a User other than yourself it would explain why you are having these problems. Taking ownership does away with that problem, and yes, it happens all the time.

Ok I added "take ownership" to my registry.

Then I took ownership of the drive that I'm sharing.

The exact same symptoms persisted.

I tried unsharing and resharing after taking ownership and still the symptoms persist.

Anyone have any thoughts?

Is it really this difficult to share a drive across a network of computers all using Windows 7?

I've followed every tutorial/explanation and that one computer still sees the drive but can't access all the folders in it. (or any of the folders most of the time)

The computer that could access the drive completely suddenly can't even see the drive on the network whatsoever.

One additional piece of info: the two computers that communicate fine are using Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. The computer with the issue is Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit.

I created a homegroup. I made the other computers join the homegroup.

In network/sharing center I disabled all other networks besides the main one and made sure the main one is a "Home" network.

The issue is still UNRESOLVED. the 64-bit OS computer can connect fine. The 32-bit OS computer can see the drive but when it tries to access it it says "Windows cannot access \\sharpnova-pc\\i"

With such erratic behavior with sharing there is a good possibility that which ever A/V software is installed may be causing these problems. The time/date settings on the problem machine should also be checked.

There is no A/V software on any of the computers.

Time/Date is synced on all three computers.

Also on a side note (don't know if I mentioned this already) in services.msc, Windows Firewall is disabled on all three machines.

Alright, try this:

1. Start from scratch, stop sharing the drive (sharing>advanced sharing...)
2. Go to [Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management] and find [Shared Folders>Shares] in the new window.
3. In the white space (underneath at least C$) go ahead and right-click>New Share...
4. Follow the wizard, you can call it 'thumbdrive' or just the drive name (k,j,i, etc.) and give permissions accordingly.
5. When you're finished with the wizard, go to a remote computer and type this into a My Computer (explorer) window:
\\(your computer name)\(whatever you just called your USB drive) and hit enter.
*. If you don't know your computer name (although you set up a homegroup so I'm sure you do), you can just rightclick Computer>properties, and scroll down to "Computer Name". Just in case.

You should now see the contents of everything in the drive, and if you want to map it to another computer with a shortcut or as a share drive you can do this:

Shortcut (for a remote computer):
Right-click Desktop>New>Shortcut and type in \\(your computer name)\(your drive name)\ and finish.

Share Drive (for a remote computer):
Right-click Computer>Map Network Drive...>(choose drive letter)>type in \\(your computer name)\(your drive name)\ and finish.

Hopefully that helps and lets you do what you're tryin to do.