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Windows 7 Network File Sharing Fix

“Base-Ops this is Buzz Light Year. I seem to have been stranded on some strange planet. No sign of any working Windows Seven file sharing here.”

Microsoft Windows Seven Ultimate Edition

So you’ve manage to get Windows Seven installed, no problems. Everything’s great, the new quick launch bar is actually useful, the OS loads up fast, and the cool new grouped roll over window preview pane is actually letting you get some work done now. You’re ready to go to the next lan party and sport your new slick OS, get some compliments and “Ooohhs” and “Awws”, and swap a few files…. but wait, what happened to the Windows Networking? Why isn’t it working anymore? How are you going to trade the latest season of Red Vs. Blue if you can’t even connect to another Windows file sharing enabled computer?

Microsoft has amped-up their new operating system with some new security standards, which notably fix their aging Samba (SMB) Windows File Sharing protocol. By default, Windows Seven comes pre-configured to only communicate with other file sharing clients and servers which are also using the new beefed-up and more secure version of the Samba file sharing protocol. Because of this, it will not properly communicate with computers running older versions of Samba (SMB) Windows File Sharing protocol.

So are you SOL? If you don’t continue to read this guide you will be. I’ve made a quick walk through with screen shots guiding you on how to restore your file sharing capabilities with older Windows File Sharing computers including but not limited to Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows 95/98/ME, and even Linux distributions running the SMB service.

Chicken Noodle Soup for the Windows 7 User’s Soul

To start us out, you need to go to your Start Menu, and search for “Local Security Policy“. When it comes up, don’t click it straight away. Right click, and say “Run as Administrator“.

Page 1 z 13Windows 7 Network File Sharing Fix – Tanner Williamson

10. 1. 2012http://www.tannerwilliamson.com/2009/09/windows-7-seven-network-file-sharing-fix ...

Start - Local Security Policies

Select Local Security Policies from the Directory Tree on the left, and then beneath of that, select Security Options.



Local Security Policies - Local Policies - Security Options

From here, under the policy browser select and open “Network security:Minimum session security for NTLM SSP (including RPC based) Clients“ .

Network Security - Minimum session security for client.



Uncheck both boxes so that neither “Require NTLMv2 session security” or “Require 128-bit encryption” are checked. Apply the settings and close that window.

Un-check the box "require minimum security" for clients.

Now, right below the currently selected policy in the policy browser, select and open “Network security:Minimum session security for NTLM SSP (including RPC based) Servers“. Again, Uncheck both boxes so that neither “Require NTLMv2 session security” or “Require 128-bit encryption” are checked. Apply the settings and close that window.



Uncheck the "require encryption" box for servers, and apply the changes.

With those settings set, we are two thirds done. Back in the Security Policies browser for Local Security Policies – Security Options, locate and open the policy “Network Security LAN Manager authentication level“.



Network Security - Lan manager authentication level.

In the drop down selector for the options of this policy, Locate and select the option “Send LM & NTLM – use NTLMv2 session security if negotiated“ . Click Apply , and close out of all policy management windows.



Set the lan manager authentication level to "Send LM and NTLM responses."

That wasn’t so bad, was it?

After changing these settings, you should be able to access any SMB server, assuming that you’ve properly configured the server itself to allow you to connect to it.

Windows 7 Home Premium users, READ THIS:

Windows 7 Home premium users do not have the ability to follow the above instructions, and will instead have to do these instructions contributed by commenter “James”.

FOR HOME EDITION 1 . Open registry editor ( Start search – regedit) 2 . Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa 3. Create a new DWORD value with the following properties: NAME: LmCompatibilityLevel VALUE: 1 4. Restart your PC and try the connection again…

If you are still having trouble after doing this, double check that the machine you are connecting to has it’s Samba file sharing configured properly as well, that your network connection on both computers is solid and configured properly, and that if you are running any firewalls on either machine, that you have set them up properly to allow for Windows Samba File Sharing on the network. I was able to access my SMB share on my Linux file server after modifying these settings on Windows 7.

Note to Linux Users: The new NTLMv2 protocol in Windows Seven has been known to cause the Samba server process on a Linux operating system to hang and or crash when receiving attempted communication from a NTLMv2 enabled client. You may need to restart the samba service on your Linux server if you have previously attempted to connect from a NTLMv2 Client (such as Windows Seven).



Post Revisions

2009-10-01:Changed the recommended configuration option for setting authentication level of the LAN manager from “Send LM and NTLM responses.” to “Send LM and NTLM. – Use NTLMv2 session security if negotiated.” This was changed for better compatibility of devices which use NTLMv2.

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Update: 2011-03-15: User feedback from contributor “James” was posted to include steps on how to do this tweak for Windows 7 Home Premium users.

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Tags: client, file sharing, fix , guide, hack, linux, Microsoft, Network, Networking, patch, Samba, server, SMB, tip, tutorial, Win7, Windows 7, Windows Seven, Winows File Sharing

73 comments How 2.0 Posted by Tanner Williamson on September 14th, 2009

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73 Responses

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Don says:•Tuesday, 15th June 2010 at 12:02 pm

Thank you for this great modification. I have Microsoft Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows 7 all trying to talk to each other.

H. Kok says:•Sunday, 20th June 2010 at 12:10 pm

Changing the two 128bit encryption options and the LM & NTLM settings helped in my case.

Description: Win 7 Professional trying to connect to a Synology 110J through mapped drives.

Previously: Trying to access a mapped drive (that could not be connected to after reboot) made my system go into a loop What worked was a link in the “favorites”, but a re-login still was necessary.

Tried to: Add credentials by hand credential manager. Set the LM & NTLM (but without the 128 bit encryption.

Note: I also updated to a newer firmware of the Synology at the same time. Unfortunately I cannot conclude whether both steps were necessary.

Conclusion: The firmware might be part of the trick, but I cannot care less anymore since the drives stay mapped after reboot.

But… What I do not understand is that the Win 7 Premium on my EEE-PC did not have any problems like this. It could always connect to the Synology as long as the workgroup was set correctly . Why on earth my desktop is behaving differently is beyond me. Windows 7 is Windows 7 if you ask me.

Garswood says:•Thursday, 24th June 2010 at 3:41 pm

Sorry, but none of the above work for me.

I have a fairly new Toshiba 13.3″ laptop running Win 7 Home Premium 64Bit. I want to ‘see’ the various folders in my Freecom 250G NAS under Explorer > Network > FND (FND being the name given to the drive).

I had no problem with XP Home.



I can map the various folders in Explorer {Folder1 (\\FND) (E:), Folder2 (\\FND) (F:) etc.}. I could do that ‘straight out of the box’ ie. didn’t have to change any registration keys or system defaults. My problem is I can’t see them under Network > FND. If I click on that it comes back with the dreaded Network error 1208.

I’ve got the same network name for all connections and have tried the solution from James above plus the alternative from Dave M (LmCompatibilityLevel value 00000002 instead of 1) and I still can’t ‘see’ the folders under FND in Explorer > Network.

Anybody else still got the problem or is there another ‘magic’ solution for this failure on the part of Microsoft with Win 7 Home Premium?

Yajra says:•Monday, 5th July 2010 at 7:26 pm

I have also had trouble using remote desktop to a Microsoft Windows 7 machine. Is there a similar fix for that?

P. Tanner Williamson (google.com/search?q=Tanner+Williamson) says:•Monday, 5th July 2010 at 11:10 pm

@Yajra

Check out LogMeIn.com. Their service will let you connect and control to up to 5 computers for free that you setup with their service.

Terri says:•Thursday, 8th July 2010 at 2:40 pm

This solved a huge problem with my new laptop users running Microsoft Windows 7 and trying to connect to shared folders on both an NT Server and a Windows 2000 server. You have saved my life. Thank you!

Horqua (photoprose.org) says:•Thursday, 15th July 2010 at 6:07 pm

Applying these recommendations, I can easily access the shares and view contents of folders on Samba. My problem appears when I want to paste a group of files from SMB share to Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. The behavior is, one file will paste, then the system hangs and no other files pasted until it times out and the message: “Problem accessing the share. Make sure you’re connected to the network and try again” appears. “Try again” has no effect. If I open another Explorer window and point to the share folder where the files to be copied live, the folder reports empty and the process bar sweeps madly. Once I cancel the procedure, I have to use Task Mgr to cancel the Explorer instance because it continues to be stuck.

This behavior began within the previous week. I’m guessing an Microsoft Windows 7 update has taken place within that time period.

Gustavo says:•Monday, 19th July 2010 at 7:42 pm

This solved us a big big problem. Thanks for taking your time to write and post this very useful information.

Sarjon Isaac says:•Monday, 2nd August 2010 at 3:09 pm

Hello and thank you,

I figured if I waited some smart person will post something and the resolution for this sharing issue. I too was excited with Microsoft Windows 7 and then only to get disappointed with the failure to access shares on Microsoft Windows 2000 Server platform. I tried researching to see if anything was published but nothing was until today. I found your link and decided to follow it and all the instructions. Now my access to the Microsoft Windows 2000 shares works! Oh yeah! I



didn’t have time to get in to trouble-shooting it because I found a way to live around the problem, and it is called FTP :) This makes my life much easier.

Cheers!

J. Healey says:•Sunday, 15th August 2010 at 8:09 pm

Thank you for writing this article. I was not able to follow your work very far. For example:

This ‘Local Security Settings’ window (Your second image) on the top left side shows the Security Settings | Account Policies | Local Policies |. Click Local Policies and Security Options appears. The right side of that image shows the top line as : Policy – Security Setting. That does not exist in my computer and the almost all the other entries below it are different from mine. Your line below that image is:

‘From here, under the policy browser select and open “Network security:Minimum session security for NTLM SSP (including RPC based) Clients“.’

In the context of the image above, this makes no sense at all to me.

TIA

Bob says:•Tuesday, 17th August 2010 at 1:40 pm

My laptop is running Windows 7 Home Premium. I can see and read all files on my SuSe Linux Professional 9.0 desktop from Windows but cannot access Windows from Linux machine although the Linux machine can see the Windows 7 machine but is refused access. I tried your fix but when I search for “Local Security Policy” in Windows 7 it is not found, so I am stuck. Everything displays as in your search screenshot except Local Security Policy. Can you help me bring it up?

Jarvis says:•Monday, 23rd August 2010 at 10:13 pm

What is a “SOL” ?

P. Tanner Williamson (google.com/search?q=Tanner+Williamson) says:•Wednesday, 25th August 2010 at 4:12 pm

@Jarvis Sorry, out of luck!

P. Tanner Williamson (google.com/search?q=Tanner+Williamson) says:•Thursday, 2nd September 2010 at 3:20 pm

@Bob

Each edition of Windows 7 is a little bit different. Windows 7 Home Premium doesn’t have the advanced management options that professional does, so you may not be able to use this work around with your current version of Windows 7 Home Premium.

Chris (bobsphoto.com) says:•Wednesday, 8th September 2010 at 3:54 pm

Oh thank your mother for birthing you! I am as thankful to you as I am infuriated at Microsoft for overlooking something this important!



Senthil Kumar says:•Monday, 13th September 2010 at 8:24 am

Thanks a lot for your perfect solution.

Dr. Dave says:•Wednesday, 15th September 2010 at 1:23 pm

You rock! This fixed my problem accessing shares on Microsoft Windows 2000.

Thanks.

Mark Lee-Barber says:•Monday, 4th October 2010 at 9:42 am

Hi. Good news. Your solution between Microsoft Windows 7 and a couple of Microsoft Windows 2000 PCs was working perfectly for some time. Bad news is that although Microsoft Windows 2000 can access Microsoft Windows 7, I can no longer see the Microsoft Windows 2000 PCs across the network. I have double checked the security settings. I am not aware of having made any changes to either computer.

Vaidas says:•Thursday, 21st October 2010 at 2:21 am

Hi. Thanks for useful information, but in my case it didn’t work untill I turned on the guest account in Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional. After doing that, I could connect from Microsoft Windows 7 Professional to shared folders on Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional. I hope that will be useful information for others. Good luck.

John P. says:•Monday, 1st November 2010 at 2:08 am

Most others have been successful , but I have not yet been successful. I have recently installed Microsoft Windows 7 Professional x64 (64 bit) on a desktop on my Ethernet LAN and gone through all the well documented steps above. However I still get a RPC error message trying to access the print server through a router. I can see the print server but yet get the error message trying to get any further, or when trying to set up the USB HP1200 printer hanging off it. All other computers (Microsoft Windows XP Professional, Microsoft Windows 2000 and Ubuntu) have no problems printing. I can access the Microsoft Windows 2000 and Microsoft Windows XP computers from Microsoft Windows Seven (Win 7) and vice versa (and could before the Tanner Williamson modifications) but the critical print server eludes me.

CA1242 says:•Thursday, 9th December 2010 at 8:38 pm

Thank you very much. I have been trying to figure this out on two new laptops for a few weeks now. I did it successfully on one with Microsoft Windows 7 Professional and it worked great.

Unfortunately, I can not access these settings from my wife’s Microsoft Windows 7 Starter; looks like these settings are not user-changeable on the cheaper version. Do you know of a workaround?

P. Tanner Williamson (google.com/search?q=Tanner+Williamson) says:•Sunday, 6th March 2011 at 9:45 pm

@CA1242,

There is a registry tweak you’ll need to enter manually in order to do it. The instructions provided require Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate. I will try and get these registry instructions updated here on the post.



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