SMB Help

I currently access an external hard drive attached to my EA9500 router via USB. The only way I've been able to access it is to enable the SMB 1.0/CIFS File Sharing Support option (Turn on Windows features). I also read that enabling this also enables SMB2 (and therefore 3) even though the name is misleading. My concern is that I just saw that Microsoft is looking to completely disable SMB v1 support, starting with Insiders. My router is old but not that old (WiFi 5) so how can I confirm what SMB protocol it is actually connecting and, more importantly, how do I maintain access if it does use SMB 1 and that gets disabled by Microsoft. Thanks.

mccnavy said:

how can I confirm what SMB protocol it is actually connecting

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To do that in an admin Powershell session use Get-SmbConnection or you can use powershell Get-SmbConnection in a Command Prompt (Admin).

Here is a mixed network, my router (192.168.1.254) is on SMB 1.5, a W7 machine is using 2.1, while the W10/W11 machines are all 3.1.1. NB: you have to be connected to a machine for it to appear in the list. A File Explorer window looking at a share on a network PC is sufficient, so open File Explorer at Network then open a share on each PC you see there in a new window.

Thanks. Mine connects at 1.5 as well. If Microsoft is only disabling "1" I guess that could mean 1.0 only and I should still retain access?

mccnavy said:

Mine connects at 1.5 as well. If Microsoft is only disabling "1" I guess that could mean 1.0 only and I should still retain access?

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No, 1.5 is still a version of SMB1, it's Microsoft's SMB 1.0/CIFS implementation.


Once MS have removed it, they do say they intend to provide a way to install it if you really need it.

Microsoft said:

I am also announcing that we are going to remove the SMB1 binaries in a future release. Windows and Windows Server will no longer include the drivers and DLLs of SMB1. We will provide an out-of-band unsupported install package for organizations or users that still need SMB1 to connect to old factory machinery, medical gear, consumer NAS, etc. - I'll have more details on this in a few months.

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