can't share folder with another windows 10 computer, help??

[Matt26]

hey all,

i think this should be a pretty straight forward process, but i'm getting stumped!

i have two windows 10 pro computers. first computer has a folder on the root of the C drive that i want to access from the second computer- both on the same wifi network, same workgroup, set to private network in windows- no homegroups set up.

i can enable sharing of the folder, but i can't select the user account from the second computer that i want to have access to the folder- when i try to select the user account (from the second computer), i can only see the local computer accounts- how do i set access for a specific user account on the second computer?

i'm pretty sure i remember this being more easily done back on windows 7, but honestly it's been awhile since i've needed to set up folder shares.

any help is greatly appreciated, thanks!

 

[Trouble]

You won't be able to select a user account on a computer where the user account doesn't exist.
You can simply UNC to the share from the client machine using the host name of the computer that has the share followed by the share name, like.....
Right click the start button and choose "Run" and in the run dialog box type
\\HostComputer\SharedFolderName
And when you are prompted for credential on the client machine your provide a username and password of an account on the host computer that has access to that folder, preceded by the machine name and followed by the password for that user on the host computer , like.....
HostComputer\UserName (where HostComputer is the name of the computer hosting the share and UserName is a valid user name (account) on that host computer who has the proper permissions to access that folder)
P@$$w0rd (where P@$$w0rd is the actual password for that user name (account) on the host computer

 

[Matt26]

You won't be able to select a user account on a computer where the user account doesn't exist.
You can simply UNC to the share from the client machine using the host name of the computer that has the share followed by the share name, like.....
Right click the start button and choose "Run" and in the run dialog box type
\\HostComputer\SharedFolderName
And when you are prompted for credential on the client machine your provide a username and password of an account on the host computer that has access to that folder, preceded by the machine name and followed by the password for that user on the host computer , like.....
HostComputer\UserName (where HostComputer is the name of the computer hosting the share and UserName is a valid user name (account) on that host computer who has the proper permissions to access that folder)
P@$$w0rd (where P@$$w0rd is the actual password for that user name (account) on the host computer

yeah i tried accessing the folder share from the second computer with no success- didn't get a username/password prompt, and eventually i get the error message "account restrictions are preventing this user from signing in"

the folder share is hidden with $, but i don't think that has any bearing?

 

[Matt26]

i removed the $ and gave read permission to the everyone group, still can't access the folder share, same error, though this time i saw mention of blank passwords not being allowed as a possible reason for the issue- and the user account (same name on both computers) has a blank password- are blank passwords not allowed for folder share access by default?

 

[Trouble]

Generally speaking since XP SP3, windows networking has not done well with blank passwords.
There are any number of workarounds that can be used
http://www.howtogeek.com/126214/how-to-create-network-file-shares-with-no-passwords-in-windows-8/
Sometimes they work, sometimes inexplicably they don't IDK why.
I find it much simpler just to include the identical user name (with a password on both devices). You don't have to actually use the other account it just needs to be present with the proper credentials to access the shares.
I remember in the early Windows 7 days, people seemed to be having a similar problem a lot. Microsoft actually produced a solution, where they suggested adding a universal user to all network nodes. I can't find the article now but I think they recommended calling the user "Share" with an equally mundane password, maybe P@$$w0rd.
It seemed a bit silly to me because I had always used UserNames and Passwords (never blank), until I realized that a lot of bad habits and practices had been picked up from XP days with everyone using Administrator for everything, or in many cases Windows XP.... which would install on a Fat32 disk had no NTFS security and in those instances no one even new about the security tab when sharing across a network.