Recently I ran into the problem on my network where I wasn’t able to browse deep within a shared folder.
This is a description of my setup:
- all computers are on one workgroup
- folder is shared, specifically giving user access to the folder
So, going to [ my computer -> my network places -> view workgroup computers ] I was able to see all computers that I expected to see in the workgroup. I then clicked on the computer of interest, and was prompted for the user/pass to gain access to that computer, which I entered and I was allowed entry. I then browsed to the folder of interest (shared already) and was given access into it.
This is when the problem existed. Once inside the shared folder of the computer I was interested in, I wasn’t able to browse within folders that were within that folder.
To give you a better idea of the structure I was looking at:
workgroup
-> computer
-> -> shared folder
-> -> -> folders
If I attempted to browse within folders (shown above) I was given the error message ” [location] not accessible. You may not have permission to use this network resource.”
What solved my problem
To solve the problem, I enabled ‘use simple file sharing (Recommended)’ on the computer with the folder I was trying to access via the workgroup over the network by [ Tools -> Folder Options -> View Tab -> Advanced Settings -> [tick] Use simple file sharing (Recommended) ] option.
Once I enabled this, I tried to access folders from a computer that wasn’t the computer with the shared folders and was allowed entry.
Once I was allowed entry, I then returned to the network computer, which I enabled ‘use simple file sharing’, and turned it back to the un-ticked state, disabling ‘simple file sharing’.
Everything still worked, and I’m happy.
What didn’t solve my problem
To attempt to solve this problem I did a plethora of options:
- specifically grant permissions via right click -> sharing and security -> permissions -> Add…
- specifically grant Full Control via right click -> sharing and security -> security tab
- specifically grant Advanced permissions via right click -> sharing and security -> security tab -> advanced -> Add…
- disabling windows firewall (it was already disabled) via Windows control panels
- rebooting the computer
- double check user privileges via Windows control panel
- set HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlLsarestrictanonymous to 0 (it was already at this value)
- set HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlLsalimitblankpassworduse’ to 1 (it was already at this value)
It was kind of frustrating, and I chose to ignore this for quite some time.
This is a lesson that sometimes things can glitch up and enabling/disabling features can often return all the tweaked values back to a standard value.