Solved Cannot access password-protected network folders of a Windows 11 PC

Hi,

I have updated my main PC from Windows 10 1607 to Windows 11 22H2 (build 22621.525) so I could benefit from more compatibility with recent games.

One of the issues I have noticed is that, from other computers in the network, I cannot access password-protected folders from the Windows 11 PC properly anymore. The PC is visible in the network and I have 4 shared network folders where only my user is allowed full access to the folders, other users have no rights to them (not even read). There is another folder where all users (Everyone) have read-only rights.
When I try to access the computer from the network, it asks all users for a username and password (just to see the list of shared folders). Entering their own credentials does not allow all users to continue, but only the owner of the Windows 11 PC (me).

If I was to disable password-protected sharing from Settings (it was enabled before), the password prompt goes away for all users and they can now access the list of folders and the folder where all users (Everyone) have read-only rights.
Problem is now that I cannot access the password-protected folders anymore from the network, because the login prompt does not appear when trying to access the folders to which only I have rights, but rather just tells everybody that they do not have the permission to view the folder and to contact the network administrator.

Now, Windows 11 removed support for SMB 1.0, so that solution is out of the question. I have tried resetting network settings and redoing the configuration all over, but the result is unchanged.

Can someone advise? Thanks!

antoniu200 said:

Now, Windows 11 removed support for SMB 1.0

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Not true about SMB 1.0. See screenshot
Regarding the folder YOU can no longer access across the network From the computer where the folder resides make sure you are the owner of the folder with full read/write access in properties of the folder. If you are not the owner, you should be able to fix it's permissions using take ownership.

Regarding password protected sharing across the network in general, I would turn it off, restart, and then turn it back on. Turn On or Off Password Protected Sharing in Windows 11 Tutorial

glasskuter said:

Not true about SMB 1.0. See screenshot

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Yep, you were right. They translated the SMB abbreviation in the option to install SMB 1.0 since Windows 10 1809 (latest I had in the house), I couldn't identify it. But it doesn't change anything after it's been installed.

glasskuter said:

Regarding the folder YOU can no longer access across the network From the computer where the folder resides make sure you are the owner of the folder with full read/write access in properties of the folder. If you are not the owner, you should be able to fix it's permissions using take ownership.

Click to expand...

It may seem off, but I am trying to share whole disks. It used to work on 1607 without doing that, not sure what else I did different, if anything.

glasskuter said:

Regarding password protected sharing across the network in general, I would turn it off, restart, and then turn it back on. Turn On or Off Password Protected Sharing in Windows 11 Tutorial

Click to expand...

Yeah, the symptoms are the same, still.

I think we should focus on getting that "Everyone" shared folder to work while password protected sharing is on.

By the way, I also did DISM and SFC scans, none revealed any issues.

glasskuter said:

From the computer where the disk resides, turn on password protected sharing Turn On or Off Password Protected Sharing in Windows 11 Tutorial

From the drive being shared, you can:

Step 1: Right-click the drive in File Explorer and select Properties.

Step 2: Select the Sharing tab and click the Advanced Sharing button.

Step 3: On the pop-up window, check Share this folder and click Permissions. Choose Everyone

Step 4: Click Apply and OK on each window to save the changed settings.

(Note: if the disk's properties show it is already shared, you may have to unshare the disk, restart, and re-share it again.)

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Okay, I wasn't clear. Whole disks should only be shared by password. Single folders are the ones to share to "Everyone". But doing what you suggested still does not allow access to the \\PC_NAME network location without username and password. I also tried removing all shared locations that had no "Everyone" rights, same result.

I tried activating the Guest account just now, to see what would happen. The other computers now get "Logon failure: the user has not been granted the requested logon type at this computer". If I disable the user account, the message is replaced with the password prompt.

Seems to me, there is a conflict between permissions settings of an entire disk against those of an individual folder on that disk.
I see 2 ways you can resolve it.
I would unshare the disk, restart, then set up sharing for each folder on the disk.
OR
leave the permission setting on that disk with no password
make a second partition on the disk, move the one folder to that partition, and set up that partition as shared with password protection.

Okay, I am still not sure you understood what I want.

So, the way accessing shared files used to work for me was something like this: Everyone on the network was able to access the \\PC_NAME location of the Windows 11 PC without entering a password. Everyone on the network was able to access select shared locations inside \\PC_NAME, but only my Microsoft account could access the other ones. If "Everyone" on the network tried to access anything restricted on the network, the Network Logon dialog would come up and offer them a chance to login (i.e. I could be the one trying to access my folders from whichever PC in the house).

Did SMB ever work like this or am I daydreaming?

I THINK I do. You want both password protected sharing and non-password protected sharing folders to reside on one partition of a drive. Yet you want to have your sharing set up at the drive level, not the folder level. This is where I see the conflict coming into play. If sharing is turned off at the drive level, one can set up sharing on individual folders residing on the drive any way one wants to without conflict, with or without requiring password. OR as I stated above, you can continue to share the partition that requires no password from the drive level as long as the one odd folder is moved elsewhere where it's attributes will manually configured to include password protected sharing.

antoniu200 said:

Did SMB ever work like this or am I daydreaming?

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I can not say as I have always had one drive with all it's folders shared at the drive level with no username/password. This drive has all my media. I then share only my documents and pictures folders on my C: drive that do require username/password

Okay, still not sure what that network login was all about back then, but I have found a way that works for me.
When I need to access my computer from other computers on the network, I can just add my credentials in the Control Panel and tie them to the \\PC_NAME location. When I am done, I can erase them manually. It's a bit rudimentary, I still don't understand why Windows doesn't just prompt for elevation when required access is not available, especially knowing the dialog is there, ready and implemented, but whatever.