4

I'm unable to access a Windows 7 (Windows 7 Pro 64-bit) shared folder from an old Windows 98 box: I tried with:

  • Turning on file and printer sharing
  • Turning on public folder sharing
  • Turning off password protected sharing
  • Sharing the folder with read permissions to Everyone
  • Lowering the encryption to 40-56 bits.

The shared folder works fine using it from Windows XP, and even from Linux with CIFS / Samba, but when I try to use it from Win98 with:

NET USE X: \\SERVER\SHARE

an user / password dialog pops up. I entered the administrator's user / password from my Windows 7 box, but it doesn't work (incorrect password). The same Win98 machine works fine accessing a Windows XP shared folder, so it looks like a Windows 7 networking issue.

Any ideas?

studiohack
  • 13,468
  • 19
  • 88
  • 118
PabloG
  • 869
  • 5
  • 12
  • 21

4 Answers4

2

I've had the same problem for a long time. I blamed Windows 7 x64, because I have a laptop running Windows 7 x32 Ultimate and no problems accesing shared network folders on that.

I have ESET Smart Security, maybe I didn't configure the network correctly when I first accessed the WiFi with the x64 computer — it was the firewall! Seemed so obvious once I had it working. I disabled the firewall on ESET and it worked, later I realized what was wrong …

I entered Advanced Setup, went to Firewall and changed the settings to trust my WiFi network, that was it!

Try it on your antivirus, or Windows Firewall. I've disabled Windows Firewall and only have ESET's firewall on. If you allowed sharing when you first added your WiFi, you're set, no problems there. The problem starts when adding the WiFi to the computer. If you selected "do not allow" sharing and when Windows pops up asking if it's a home/work/public network, you select public, your're screwed.

For trusted networks, select both on antivirus firewall and windows network: trusted/home, allow/home, or whatever term your antivirus uses.

slhck
  • 223,558
  • 70
  • 607
  • 592
lorenzo
  • 21
  • 2
1

I had the same problem, and finally figured out that while Windows XP and earlier apparently use case-insensitive passwords, Windows Vista and later use case-sensitive passwords. So in the end, I only had to do two things to make it work:

  1. On the Windows 7 side, Go to Control Panel → Administrative Tools → Local Security Policy → Local Policies → Security Options, and set "Network security: LAN Manager authentication level" to "Send LM & NTLM - use NTLMv2 session security if negotiated". This is identical to setting the following registry value (so you only have to do one or the other, not both):

    Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa]
"LmCompatibilityLevel"=dword:00000001

  2. On the Windows 7 side, set a lowercase password for the user given access to the shared folder (which is the user that has to log in on the Windows 98 side, and the password that will need to be entered on the Windows 98 side to access the share).

Deadcode
  • 111
  • 2
1

Try supplying the user name as servername\username

It could be trying to authenticate using the 98 machines local admin account instead of the remote machines.

Windos
  • 11,061
  • 4
  • 38
  • 56
  • 1
    the Win98 popup only allows to enter a password, not a username, the username is always (to my knowledge) the Win98 logged user. – PabloG Mar 14 '11 at 01:38
  • Yeah that'll be the bulk off the problem. It is trying to authenticate with an account Win7 has no record of. You could trying changing the permissions on the shared folder so that "Everyone" has full access. It should then not prompt for password... should. Other than that firgure out a way to specify a username on the 98 machine, or... upgrade to XP :P – Windos Mar 14 '11 at 01:44
  • yeah, I tried with "everyone / full access", no luck. I cannot migrate the PC to XP because it has an old Psion SSD card with a 16-bit driver (really!) not supported on XP. – PabloG Mar 14 '11 at 02:00
1

There are a few settings you need to change, particularly with Password Protected Sharing. It's all explained here on one of Microsoft's web sites:

  Cannot connect to Windows 7 shares (from Windows 98)
  http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-networking/cannot-connect-to-windows-7-shares/002eee5d-9492-4b5f-9657-c076cc977d0d

Randolf Richardson
  • 14,634
  • 39
  • 52
  • @Randolf: the password protected sharing is off as posted initially. Thanks anyway – PabloG Mar 14 '11 at 01:35
  • There are other settings mentioned in that document; Password Protected Sharing is only one of them. – Randolf Richardson Mar 14 '11 at 02:08
  • @Randolf: all my network settings match your link: current profile (Work), Network discovery on, file and printer sharing on, public folder sharing on, media streaming off, password protected sharing off. – PabloG Mar 14 '11 at 02:40
  • Assuming you're behind a hardware firewall already, try disabling the Windows Firewall features on your computers (I think only Windows 7 will have this if I recall correctly), then try again. – Randolf Richardson Mar 14 '11 at 05:16
  • Another thing to try is accessing the Windows 7 computer by it's IP address. Assuming it's IP address is 10.1.1.7, try this: NET USE X: \\10.1.1.7\Share – Randolf Richardson Mar 14 '11 at 05:17
  • @Randolf: yeah, I tried using the server IP instead of the name and disabling the firewall, didn't make any difference. – PabloG Mar 14 '11 at 12:33
  • How long is the name of your Share? Older versions of Windows sometimes don't fare well with long (or even strange) names. Try keeping it very short. Also, make sure the name of the server computer and the share itself don't match any login names on either computer, and that both computers have different names. – Randolf Richardson Mar 14 '11 at 14:45
  • @Randolf: the Win7 computer is Pablo4, the Win98 computer is PabloX, the share name is Test, I'm trying to connect via NET USE X: \\192.168.1.105\test or \\pablo4\test, no luck. – PabloG Mar 14 '11 at 21:53