windows 7 asking for user name and password

For some reason recently one of my windows 7 pcs in my home network has started asking for a user name and password when I select it from another windows 7 pc in my home network. I do not have a password set up on any of the pcs in my network so have no password or username to enter. It worked fine and not sure what changed. I am not using homegroup. What can I turn off to eliminate this. I am unable to access the files on this pc from other pcs in the home network. All other pcs are working ok in this regard.

One should always have a password set as a security measure. Also, classic sharing will not work without a password set by default.

You can use netplwiz by typing that in the start menu search box if you wish the pc(s) to logon still, without prompting, at boot up.

To make life easier on ya, set the pcs on your network to all have identical user names/passes. Not the only way, but quickest.

reh1956 said:

For some reason recently one of my windows 7 pcs in my home network has started asking for a user name and password when I select it from another windows 7 pc in my home network. I do not have a password set up on any of the pcs in my network so have no password or username to enter. It worked fine and not sure what changed. I am not using homegroup. What can I turn off to eliminate this. I am unable to access the files on this pc from other pcs in the home network. All other pcs are working ok in this regard.

In network and sharing -> advanced sharing -> home or work

Do you have "Use account names and Passwords to access other computers" selected?

For homegroup you should use the "Let Windows manage...." instead.

reh1956 said:

For some reason recently one of my windows 7 pcs in my home network has started asking for a user name and password when I select it from another windows 7 pc in my home network. I do not have a password set up on any of the pcs in my network so have no password or username to enter. It worked fine and not sure what changed. I am not using homegroup. What can I turn off to eliminate this. I am unable to access the files on this pc from other pcs in the home network. All other pcs are working ok in this regard.

This problem is usually relates to the time/date settings on the problem pc. You should check the time and date both in Windows in in your bios settings and make sure they match the other computers in your network.

Commontater: You nailed it. In advanced settings I had "Use account names and Passwords to access other computers" checked as yes. Not sure how it got that way. But unchecked it everything works now the way I want it. Just an FYI, I stopped using homegroups a while back because I suspected it was waking up on of my computers from sleep. Thanks again for your help and thanks to everyone else that replied!

reh1956 said:

Commontater: You nailed it.

Excellent... You should click on the little triangle at the upper right corner and report the issue as "solved". Glad I could help.

Just an FYI, I stopped using homegroups a while back because I suspected it was waking up on of my computers from sleep. Thanks again for your help and thanks to everyone else that replied!

I've had this problem... and given that we are a household of shift workers, it became quite the family issue when our youngest was sleeping during the day. I'd open a folder on my machine that just happened to be shared and every machine on the network would spin up... What an annoyance! I finally solved it (fingers crossed) but the solution is so freaking complex I'm hesitant to post it here...

chev65 said:

This problem is usually relates to the time/date settings on the problem pc. You should check the time and date both in Windows in in your bios settings and make sure they match the other computers in your network.

I saw that when I was testing homegroups after first installing Win7 on two of my machines... 5 minutes off and all kinds of weird crap started happening... Home Networking went right out the window....

I'm new to Windows 7 as well, and had the same problems with Homegroups. I wish there was a way to uninstall or deactivate it completely.

On the target XP machine go to control panel, folder options, view and untick last box (Use Simple File Sharing) then restart. On the WIN 7 machine try and access the XP machine from the network and when it asks for name and password enter a valid name and password for the XP machine