How do Share Files Between Two Win 11 Computers -Same Network?

Thanks for that.
I'll add a note to my procedure. I'd always used Share rather than Give access to out of habit but did not realise it might have different results.


All the best,
Denis

Winuser said:

Using your guide and and selecting share instead of give access to worked. On my first attempt I did get give access to to work on my new mini pc but it stopped working when I tried to give access to on my desktop.

Click to expand...

Brink's reply is in post #160 of the tutorial - here's a link
so it seems there is a precondition to using the Give access to options.
I don't understand everything in the Option 7 he refers to. I'll stick with my Step 6.


All the best,
Denis

I'm happy to say that after two more restarts, a shutdowd/start and and a update to the latest Insider build, my desktop can still access the folder on the mini pc. I wonder why using the share folder option worked and the give access to didn't.

This brief and straightforward guide shows you how to share a folder in Windows 10.

I'm back to ground zero. The mini pc shows in File Explorer but when I try to access it I get an error message that the computer can't be found. I'm off tomorrow so I'll have the time to start from the beginning and try to get it working again.

This is a update to my problem. When I setup the folder on the mini pc I gave access to everyone and chose the option use a username and password was needed. By doing this all of my computers on the network could access the folder. All I had to do was use the username and password of the mini pc. I can no longer access the mini pc from my new desktop but can still access it from my old desktop. My old desktop uses the same username and password as the mini pc. My new desktop was able to have access once I used the username and password of the mini pc. Now the new desktop sees the mini pc but can't access it. This is what I know for sure that has changed. I have updated my canary builds to keep up with new builds. Eset Internet Security was causing me problems trying to access my Blink security cameras using WSA and the Blink app. I uninstalled Eset and I'm now using Windows Defender and Malwarebytes Premium as my security programs. My question is, is there a setting in Defender or Malwarebytes I need to set or is it as simple as me creating a new user with the same username and password as the mini pc. I only need to access the mini pc to add or edit the files. The mini pc is running Mezzmo and I don't have any problem accessing the content to play.

@Winuser,

Here is a checklist that I use to get networking working properly on all my machines.

Note: If you are on a Canary or beta build, I cannot guarantee that something has not changed, but consider this a good starting point.

Check these first two steps an all PCs, both those you want to connect to (the host), and those doing the connecting (the client).

1) Go to Settings > Network & internet. At the top of the screen, make sure that the computer shows Private network and NOT Public network. If it shows the network to be public, click there and change it to Private.

2) Still in Network & internet, click on Advanced network setting > Advanced sharing settings. Under the Private networks section, make sure that both Network discovery and File and printer sharing are turned on.

The following steps apply only to the host system (the system from which you are sharing files).

3) Under the same Advanced sharing settings page, go to the All networks section and set the Password protected sharing. Let me explain the behavior depending upon how you set this option:

Please note that this option ONLY affects the behavior of shares that you share with EVERYONE. If you create a share and share it with specific users and not the user called Everyone, then this option will make no difference.

ON - If you set this option to ON, then from any machine that you try to connect, you will need to specify a user name and password that is valid ON THE HOST MACHINE in order to connect to a share even if it is shared with Everyone. In other words, "Everyone" is defined as everyone who has a valid account on the host.

OFF - By setting this option to off, you are changing who Windows considers to be Everyone. When off, everyone who has access to the network will be able to connect to shares that are shared with Everyone, regardless of whether there is an account with the user name being used to connect on the host machine or not.

Recommendation: I would suggest starting with this setting OFF. Once you establish that you can successfully connect, you can get more restrictive if you wish to do so.

4) Open File Explorer and click on the kabob menu (the three horizontal dots), then select Options. Go to the View tab. Scroll down to the option called Use Sharing Wizard (Recommended).

Once again, let me explain the behavior depending upon whether you enable this option or not:

ENABLED - If you enable this option, and then share a folder, the Wizard will not only share the folder, but it will also set the NTFS file permissions on that folder and all contents to allow the users that you have granted permission access at the file level.

DISABLED - If you disable this option, then, after you create the share, you will need to manually set the NTFS permissions to grant access to those users that you granted share levevel permissions to.

Recommendation: I would suggest enabling this option. Once again, after testing and verifying that everything works as expected, you can disable this option if you require more advanced manual control.

WiFi Settings: This applies to both host and clients. I mainly use Intel WiFi adapters, but I have found that one setting in particular seems to frequently cause me grief. On systems using Intel WiFi adapters, open Device Manager and locate your WiFi adapter. Right-click that adapter and select Properties. Go to the Advanced tab. Look for a setting called Packet Coalescing. Disable that setting.

Note: I have no idea why that setting makes such a big difference, but time and again I find that this setting being enabled causes me difficulties on my local network.

I think that I have covered all the bases. If I think of anything else, I'll post back. I hope that this helps!

I'll go through the list later today. Right now I'm waiting for my appointment at Miracle Ear. I did create a new user on my new desktop with the same user name and password as the mini pc but it didn't work. I do still have access with my old desktop so it must be in the settings on my new desktop or at least that's what I'm thinking.

@hsehestedt, Working through your guide I was able to get access to the folder on the mini pc but not the same way as before. I can only access it by using the new user I created with the same name and password as the user on the mini pc. On my desktop Network Discovery and File and Printer Sharing was turned off and in Device Manager I disabled Packet Coalescing. When I set up the mini pc I did choose to share with everyone and used the option to use the password. I was able to access the folder from my new desktop with my original user account. I just needed to enter the username and password for the mini pc. I'm debating if I want to leave everything as is or recheck the setting on the mini pc.

Winuser said:

@hsehestedt, Working through your guide I was able to get access to the folder on the mini pc but not the same way as before. I can only access it by using the new user I created with the same name and password as the user on the mini pc. On my desktop Network Discovery and File and Printer Sharing was turned off and in Device Manager I disabled Packet Coalescing. When I set up the mini pc I did choose to share with everyone and used the option to use the password. I was able to access the folder from my new desktop with my original user account. I just needed to enter the username and password for the mini pc. I'm debating if I want to leave everything as is or recheck the setting on the mini pc.

Click to expand...

You can certainly experiment. If you disable the password protected sharing, then you would be able to connect to the share no matter what user name and password you are logged in with. In that event you will not even be asked for a user name and password to connect to the share.

Here is how I have it configured, just to serve as an example:

I logon to all of my personal system using the same user name and password. As a result, if I create a share on any machine and share it to my user name, I can connect from any of my machines without ever having to supply a user name and password because it passes the name that I am logged in with by default, which happens to also be a valid name and password on the machine to which I am connecting.

If I want to make a share available to someone else in the household, then I share with Everyone and have password protected sharing turned off. This way, stuff that only I should have access to is secure while at the same time requiring no user name or password be supplied by me, while at the same time allowing others to access things that don't need to be secure. But once again, they don't have to supply any user name or password either.

hsehestedt said:

You can certainly experiment. If you disable the password protected sharing, then you would be able to connect to the share no matter what user name and password you are logged in with. In that event you will not even be asked for a user name and password to connect to the share.

Click to expand...

When I first tried to setup sharing the folder the users on my other computers couldn't be found. zzzthst's why I went with everyone and chose to use the password so that I would be the only one with access. I think I will try setting up the mini pc later. I can't do it now because my wife is watching the tv.

@hsehestedt, I have it working with my main username again. I created a new user on the mini pc with the same username and password as the one I want to use on my new desktop. I then added it to the share options. Then I tried accessing the folder from my desktop and still got the same error. I found a setting using Control Panel and switched from a business network to a local network and it still didn't work. Forgot to mention that after each change I did a restart on both computers. I then tried accessing the folder from my desktop and my desktop still couldn't find the mini pc even though it showed in File Explorer. I tried a couple more times to access the folder and I don't know what changed but on the second or third try and restart I was asked for a user name and password. I entered my main username and password and was given access to the mini pc and the folder. I don't know what changed during my restarts but what ever it was, finally worked. Unless MS gets networking to work the way it should, it will always be a big mystery and a hit and miss experience to me.

That's odd that you had so many difficulties.

Another user and I were just discussing the fact that we both keep some rather extensive notes on how to set this all up.

I know that you are probably in no mood to go through all this again, but next time you setup a machine, you may want to jot down step-by-step each step that you take until you have it down to a formula .

BTW, I don't know if this may have been an issue for you or not, but be aware that if you try to connect to a computer using one set of credentials but it fails, you may still have an attempted connection with that set of credentials and you won't be able to connect even using the correct credentials until that connection is cleared. This is because Windows will not allow you to connect to the same system using more than one set of credentials. This is why doing a reboot can suddenly make things better, because that clears that connection.

So, with all that said, I will agree that this can all be a serious pain in the backside. However, I can understand why. It's because there is a lot of underlying flexibility and power to customize things extensively, but with all that flexibility and capability it adds a lot of complexity.

hsehestedt said:

That's odd that you had so many difficulties.

Another user and I were just discussing the fact that we both keep some rather extensive notes on how to set this all up.

I know that you are probably in no mood to go through all this again, but next time you setup a machine, you may want to jot down step-by-step each step that you take until you have it down to a formula .

BTW, I don't know if this may have been an issue for you or not, but be aware that if you try to connect to a computer using one set of credentials but it fails, you may still have an attempted connection with that set of credentials and you won't be able to connect even using the correct credentials until that connection is cleared. This is because Windows will not allow you to connect to the same system using more than one set of credentials. This is why doing a reboot can suddenly make things better, because that clears that connection.

So, with all that said, I will agree that this can all be a serious pain in the backside. However, I can understand why. It's because there is a lot of underlying flexibility and power to customize things extensively, but with all that flexibility and capability it adds a lot of complexity.

Click to expand...

After a stack package update and a unsuccessful build update I can no longer access the mini pc. I'm going to give up. It's not worth all of this trouble. MS can take their Windows 11 networking and the team working on it and stick it.

Winuser said:

After a stack package update and a unsuccessful build update I can no longer access the mini pc. I'm going to give up. It's not worth all of this trouble. MS can take their Windows 11 networking and the team working on it and stick it.

Click to expand...

So sorry about the difficulties.

If you do ever want to revisit and you have some time for us to go through this very methodically and step-by-step, please feel free to ping me. I would be happy to go through this with you from start to finish.

hsehestedt said:

So sorry about the difficulties.

If you do ever want to revisit and you have some time for us to go through this very methodically and step-by-step, please feel free to ping me. I would be happy to go through this with you from start to finish.

Click to expand...

I might give it another trytomorrow or this weekend. Right now I'm trying to get the latest Canary build installed. The failed Canary update and the Stack Package update is the only things that was changed on my desktop.

Windows Canary is all updated and this is what's going on with access to my mini pc. Originally on my mini pc I set it up to share the Video folder with everyone but chose the option to use the username and password of the mini pc to have access from my other computers. After some trials and errors I was able to access the shared folder when I was logged in to my main account on my new desktop with my original account. I use personal names so I'll just say the username was H*. When I first accessed the shared folder I just had to enter the username and password for the mini pc. On my old desktop I created a new user and used the same username and password as the mini pc. both of my desktops were able to access the shared folder on the mini pc. For what ever reason I lost the ability to access the mini pc using the username H* so I created a new user on my new desktop and named it the same as the user and password on the mini pc. This did work but I didn't want switch users anytime I wanted to access the folder on the mini pc. I checked a few settings and made a few changes on my new desktop and after a few restarts I was able to access the folder on my mini pc from my new desktop. Now after the Stack Package update, a first try unsuccessful Canary Build update followed by a second try and successful Canary update I can no longer access the shared folder from the H*** account or the newly created F*** account. The F*** account is the same as the user account on the mini pc. On the mini pc I did create a new user with the H*** username and password that I use on the new desktop. Now that my new desktop is all updated I can no longer access the mini pc no matter what account I use. I haven't tried access from my old desktop. I'm about ready to explode so I don't know if I want to try again tonight or wait. This whole experience is hurting my head and I'm very close to flipping out. I have a saying that IMHO I thinks fits the MS team responsible for programming the networking and sharing. You can educate an idiot as much as you want but all you wind up with is an educated idiot. You can't fix stupid.

Winuser, I'll respond when I get a chance. I'm about to head out for dinner and will be away a number of hours. But when I can I'll review your last post and respond.

Even though I'm very close to taking a baseball bat to my new desktop I decided to give it one more try using this guide on both computers. Sharing folder isn't working - Windows 10 Help Forums I still can't access the mini pc even though it shows in File Explorer. I started my old desktop and I can access the mini pc using the username H*. I haven't tried switching users from H* to user F***** yet. This is totally ridicules. All three computers are on the same network and using Workgroup. They are all using Windows Defender. Except for my new desktop also running Malwarebytes Premium there is no difference. I know it might be possible that Malwarebytes causing the problem but I doubt it because I have had network sharing working on this computer.

Winuser,

I'll try my best here, but I admit that I'm having a little difficult time following all the details. I'm sure that in large part that has to do with me not sleeping about 48 hours now so I'm kinda fading fast .

Bottom line is that if you have poassword protected sharing enabled, then from your client machine you MUST use the name and password associated with an account on the host machine.

One possibility would be to create a user name on the host that matches what the user on the client is using. You can set that account to disallow local logins so that the user in question cannot logon to that machine, they can only use that account to connect to shares.

My personal preference is to start as simple as possible: Turn OFF password protected sharing and share to Everyone. If you still cannot connect, then the problem is something other than the user account / password that is causing the problem. On the other hand, if it does work that way, then you can focus specifically on the accounts and passwords knowing that the problem must be there.

I have an idea for some tests that we can do. We'll use a new folder that you create as a test and step through this one piece at a time, but I'm not going to write that up till the morning.

Be patient! We will get this. It just may take a little back and forth because I need to very clearly understand your exact scenario.