Solved Success on shared folder D:\shared but only with IP

with a few days of research on setting up win11 pro 24h2 I came up with this list I have 2 pcs setup with a clean installs of 24h2 win11 pro. each PC has an identical LOCAL user account ONLY and pass.
this was my list that I carefully went through:

3. Disable Password Protected Sharing (optional for guest access):
- Control Panel > Network and Sharing Center > Change advanced sharing settings.
- Expand 'All Networks' and choose 'Turn off password protected sharing'.

4. Ensure Function Discovery Services are Running:
- Open services.msc.
- Set 'Function Discovery Provider Host' and 'Function Discovery Resource Publication' to Automatic and Running.

5. Enable Firewall Rules:
- Open wf.msc (Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security).
- Enable all 'File and Printer Sharing' and 'Network Discovery' inbound rules.

6. Enable the File Sharing Wizard:
- File Explorer > View > Options > Folder Options > View tab.
- Ensure 'Use Sharing Wizard (Recommended)' is checked.

7. Address Guest Access Blocking in 24H2:
- Run the following in PowerShell as admin:
Set-SmbClientConfiguration -EnableInsecureGuestLogons $true -Force
Set-SmbClientConfiguration -RequireSecuritySignature $false -Force
Set-SmbServerConfiguration -RequireSecuritySignature $false -Force

8. Optional Registry Tweak for Guest Access:
- Add this via Command Prompt (admin):
reg add "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanWorkstation\Parameters" /v AllowInsecureGuestAuth

9. Optional: Disable IPv6 (if share path issues persist):
- Network Connections > Adapter > Properties > Uncheck 'Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6)'
go to ncpa.cpl

10. Use matching local accounts on both PCs or configure Credential Manager for smooth access.

11 Share Folder and share folder with the user of the PC

12 Add the user name and pass to the windows credentials

13 add NetBIOS over tcp/ip under the wins tab in the ethernet adapter
DID NOT ADD AS a SERVICE however just check the box under wins tab

net use * \\192.168.1.xxx\CENTRALfolder /user:192.168.1.xxx\username xpassxx
this command reached my shared folder on the internal spinning 2Tdrive (NOT C) the above command created a Z mapped drive automatically on the PC that I want to see the shared files. I used USB ethernet adaptors on this job instead of motherboard ethernet. ANYWAY that worked. I can see all the files in the shared folder from the other PC.
So this brought up the share - that command above did. BUT no access to this share under network, there is an error there. BUT CAN access with IP address, That tells me the the naming is not working right. someplace in windows 11 pro there is this list of ip addresses that links up the Device name like DESKTOP-ADKIQP and its supposed to take the dynamically assigned IP and join it together with the ip address and for some reason windows 11 pro 24h2 can do this right. So far today---- anyway, I So maybe someone knows how to GET AT the program that is supposed to tie device names to Ips or someone knows why its not totally working. At this point my solution is to force the router to tie ip to mac addresses so they do not change so the share is always available. Stills it just seams windows 11 and should work and see the folder I share on the other PC but only via IP

Here's the steps that I did and it always worked for me.
1. Assign devices such as phone, printer, PC's etc... that need to access LAN network a static IP address so that they always have fixed address when on: login into router-> LAN Settings.
2. All networks in PC's set to Private
3. Turn off Password from advance network sharing, allow printer sharing.
4. Go to Control panel->Program and Features, turn on SMB Client and Server.
5. When share a drive/folder. Set permission on Advance Sharing to allow "Everyone" full access, On security tab, if a user "Everyone" does not exist, add one and allow full access.
6. Create a BAT file as follows then, Run as admin
7. Turn off all devices (Phone, Printer etc...). On each PC, type: ipconfig /flushdns then shutdown
8. Power off router for several minutes then turn back on
9. Once the router comes online, turn on everything. Wait for few minutes for all DNS cache to be updated.

I know you've already done some of the steps. But let's start fresh.
NOTE: You don't need to create any user with password for it to work.
Good luck.

If you're networking current Windows versions (10 22H2, 11 23H2, and 11 24H2), all you need to do is the following.

• Set the network profile to private.
  • This isn't technically necessary, but enabling file and printer sharing on the public profile is a horrible idea if you take your device out in public. That is the reason the private profile recommended.
• Enable network discovery, if you want to see devices in the Network node of File Explorer.
  • Suppose I have computers A, B, and C. If I disable network discovery on computer C, I will not see computer C from A or B, and I won't see any computers from computer C.
• Enable file and printer sharing, on the device that has the data you want to share.
  • That is, if you have computers A and B, and B has a folder of videos you want to watch while you're using A, then B needs to have file and printer sharing enabled.
• Add Windows credentials to Credential manager for the other computers you want to access.
  • This is optional. You could type in a user name and password every time you want to connect.
  • Credentials are stored per-user, so if you add them under Alice's account on computer A, they won't be there under Andrew's account on computer A.
  • This is a convenience feature if you have different user names on various devices, or same user names but different passwords.

That's it. Things like enabing all the file and printer sharing firewall rules and turning on ancient versions of SMB make your computer less safe, especially out in public. You can do that if you want to, but folks should be aware that they're making themselves vulnerable. For example, SMBv2 has been around since Vista, so you should only need SMBv1/CIFS for anything older than that. Again, assuming we're talking about Windows devices only here.

If you're trying to access super-old versions of Windows, or an older NAS, or a USB drive hanging off your router, then sure, more steps are usually required.

THANK YOU for this list of items that configures the names to Ip address, I had to go and study what each one of these items did in your batch file and for home use its perfect. I read that more security would be added if this batch file was ran after the first one turning a few less secure things off.

Topgundcp said:

NOTE: You don't need to create any user with password for it to work.
Good luck.

Click to expand...

If i want to this to be more secure I could run this as a batch file afterwards, after running the batch file that Topguncp listed
sc config Browser start= disabled
sc stop Browser
sc config lmhosts start= disabled
sc stop lmhosts
but if you cant access shares after running this file above as a batch file then the above bat file by Topgundcp could be re-ran -- ?

My impression also is that I would need to turn on Netbios over TCP/IP in the adapter settings under wins and even add the service for ntebios over tcp/ip ? Years back my networks would not see each other until I added this NETBIOS services. And finally I learn that this is what did the job of naming computers to ip address. Certainly complex. We can find the mac addresses of each PC, We can find the current ip address of each pc and we can find the name of each PC. If we have these things then we can manually set drive shares??
topgunsdcps bat file covers what a common small business peer to peer file AND printer sharing network needs, THANK YOU FOR SHARING it !



NOTES:
FDResPub
fdPHost
upnphost
Dnscache
SSDPSRV
these are for the new way of putting names to ips
and lmhosts is the old way with vista, and the adaptor needs to have NETBIOS enabled, like for smb1 and then lanmanworkstation is the program the takes care of doing the shares on windows 11

Oh my. Good luck with this. I’m out.