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#1
Need help resolving "Enter Network Password" issue
I reached the limit of my patience well over an hour ago, and I'm praying that someone has the answer I can't seem to find anywhere.
I have three PCs: Hal, Falcon, and Athena. Hal and Falcon are desktops running 7 Ultimate x64. Athena is a netbook running 7 Home Premium 32bit. All of them played nicely with each other across the network, and not a single "Enter Network Password" prompt was to be found. From Hal I could get into Athena and Falcon, from Athena I could get into Hal and Falcon, you get the idea.
Yesterday, I reformatted Athena with the same OS it has now, 7 Home Premium 32bit. Post install, things went pear shaped. Athena can get into Hal and Falcon. Hal and Falcon can get into each other. Hal and Falcon cannot get into Athena. From both of those machines, I get an "Enter Network Password" prompt. I spent literally all day looking for a solution. I did not find one. I rebooted, I searched, I double checked all the settings, I ran a troubleshooter that said I didn't have permission to access the Share (this is the default Share by the way, the User Folder Share), so with my limited knowledge I checked the Permissions. To my eyes, everything was identical to the other two computers, and there was no reason I shouldn't be able to walk right in.
Today, I spent much of the day, again, looking for answers before finally giving up this evening in frustration and reformatting again. After the format, things looked good, I got in! I ran Windows Update, tried the Network again, and I was back where I started. "Enter Network Password". So I reformatted a THIRD time. Again, straight off the first boot, things work just as expected, and then, literally no more than five minutes later, as I'm attempting to move my backup over the network, having not done a SINGLE thing to Athena, "Enter Network Password".
I am, as I said, at the very end of my patience, nevermind knowledge. I have no idea where to even start trying to figure this out anymore, and I NEED all three computers to play nicely together. My user account is the same name, the same password, across all machines. And yet Windows Security's "Enter Network Password" refuses my credentials irregardless of how I type them in.
To make matters even stranger, while none of my Windows PCs can access Athena, I have three separate Macs that find the Share and mount it without any problem at all.
What is this problem, where did it come from, and why is it a problem NOW, on this hardware, on this system, when it wasn't before I formatted? Nothing has changed! Someone please tell me you know what's happening and how I can resolve this. I'm pulling my hair out restraining myself from breaking something.