Windows 7 – How to Change User on Network Share

This issue bothered me for ages. What finally fixed it was the following:

1. Disconnect any existing mapped drives
2. Map a new drive; check the boxes for "Reconnect" and "Use different credentials"
3. When you are prompted, enter SERVER\USERNAME for the user name. For example, if your server's name is SHIRE, and the user name is Baggins, enter SHIRE\Baggins for the user name.
4. Enter the password as usual.
5. Check the "remember credentials" box.

If I understand correctly, some whacky security policy is wiping out the credentials because you're not authenticating against a windows domain. Adding the server name tricks Windows into thinking there's a domain there, and so it dutifully remembers the password. Or something.

Big shout out to Microsoft for this. Well done. /sarcasm

http://alinconstantin.blogspot.com/2009/10/windows-7-cannot-access-smb-shares-on.html

http://alinconstantin.blogspot.com/2010/03/network-shares-on-smb-server-could-not.html

For what it's worth, I tried several other things before this, and I don't know if any of them had an effect. See these blog entries for details:

I don't think that there is necessarily a way to do this automatically. That may yield unexpected results each time you browse a folder or try to copy one (or multiple) files. However, you can look to see which network shares you have accessed and remove if needed.

I can see this valuable if you need to move away from your computer and do not wish to reboot to clear the sessions and/or if someone may hop onto your computer and you do not want them getting fancy with browsing your network and seeing a share with credentials already entered.

You can open a command prompt: Start > Run > CMD

Type rundll32.exe keymgr.dll, KRShowKeyMgr

From here you can remove authenticated network shares so that the next time you will have to type in the credentials again. I know that this isn't exactly what you're looking for, but may be an alternative.