No Login Pop Up on Network Share

I would be grateful if anyone can help me with this wee problem.

I have a network in the house with a mix of windows operating systems.

My server is just windows XP SP3 sharing folders across the network by user name login. They are all on a workgroup not domain and the Windows 7 PC's do not have homegroup enabled and all the settings are enabled in the sharing centre options, ie network discovery etc.

Wireless
Laptop 1 running Windows 7, Laptop 2 running Windows XP SP3, when accessing the shared folders on the server will bring up a login screen so you can input your user name and password. You then can access your allocated shared folders.

Wired
All wired PC's when accessing the shared folders on the server will bring up a login screen so you can input your user name and password. You then can access your allocated shared folders. Mainly Windows 7 now. Windows XP was previously installed and worked ok also.


The problem is that on a new install of Windows 7 on a laptop when you click the Server icon in windows explorer, the server automatically shows all of the available folders and no-login screen. This means that you cant login to view your allocated folders on the server. You can access the folders that are shared to everyone. It seems its quite common when I googled it but no answers.

Boab said:

I would be grateful if anyone can help me with this wee problem.

The problem is that on a new install of Windows 7 on a laptop when you click the Server icon in windows explorer, the server automatically shows all of the available folders and no-login screen. This means that you cant login to view your allocated folders on the server. You can access the folders that are shared to everyone. It seems its quite common when I googled it but no answers.

When you look at the shares what are the "Everyone" or "users" permissions? (On your server).

When you create shares everyone by default gets read access to the shares. So they can see and connect to the shares.

If the objects that are being shared with everyone permissions not only will people see the share they will see objects that are stored within that share.

By default the get read access. If you can create and delete objects within the share then you will have at least create/modify permissions, or possibly full control.

By default XP has the "Use sharing wizard" ticked in the folder options, which is counter-intuitive. Might be worth unticking this. You will gain a better understanding of security in my opinion.

If you have defined a number of users on the XP machine, then you may want to set up permissions for each use for each share and remove the everyone permissions.

If you use a WDTV HD LIve media player this will struggle to find media when there are no Everyone permissions, but otherwise, it is better to use specific permissions.

I have an XP/SP3 server with 6 x 2TB drives. Connecting to it are 9 Windows 7 desktop systems, a windows 7 laptop, three plasma TVs, 2 PVRs and a WDTV HD Live.

The 12TB of storage is divided into various shares. Eg Music, blu-ray movies, DVD Movies, TV Shows, Photos, applications and games. None of the computers require a login to the server when they boot, but that's because I've set up credentials in Windows 7. This is called an Enterprise credential and it is remembered. So once I connect (map), the drive to the share I only have to do it once.

By default Windows creates a "session" credential which only lasts until the next reboot. But it's easy to change through control panel.

However, when you map the drive you have to provide a username and password that matches what's on the XP machine, but as I said, it only has to be done once.

If you want to be asked for a login and password everytime you access the share, make sure you have no credentials stored, and you do not tick "reconnect at login". If you want to have to enter a password when you boot your PC set this up on the user profile in control panel.

If you want to limit what each machine can see, set permissions specific to each user on each of the shares you want them to be able to access, and remove any everyone permissions. Remember to propogate the permissions to all files and folders under the share.

Good Luck
Tanya

Tanya,

I do not have the shared folders mapped on any of the PCs connecting to the server. You just browse to it through Windows Explorer. Double click the Server Icon and you should be asked for a User Name Password login pop up. Just on this particular Windows 7 laptop it wont do this when connecting to the server. All the other machines do. Funny thing is that if I use this laptop to connect to another windows 7 pc it will produce a login box. All the other PCs produce the login box.

Thanks for the help

Fixed

I have tried all sorts of stuff. Disabling Homegroup in services etc.

Finally sussed it was something simple. I would kick myself if I could

Like I said earlier all machines no matter what OS except one can access the server. All the login/user names are on the server with valid shares.

I disabled the guest account on the server user security. Now why this only affected one machine and not the rest I dont know but it worked.