I was able to share a folder in local network without asking for credentials in windows 7 and 8. This we use to do by changing settings in Advanced Network and Sharing settings.
After updating to windows 10 it still asks for the user name and password. Even if I add Guest and Everyone with full controll in the permissions. I am sure I need to enable the Guest account before I can add guest account. For checking I went to user accounts but did not see Guest account but I accessed accounts using cmpmgmt.msc
and checked the Guest account there which is enabled (because disable account was unchecked)
Has anything changed in windows 10?
Best Answer
Question is old but none of the answers fully cover the problem. There are a number of ways to accomplish this. There is one that works every time.
sharing
.Manage advanced sharing settings
. Click that.All Networks
and find the section calledPassword protected sharing
.Turn off password protected sharing
.Save changes
.Also make sure that the file permissions of the files and folders being shared also allow access to
Everyone
. File permissions are managed separately from share permissions and whichever is more restrictive wins.This should work in Windows 7 through 10 without issue.
Additional Notes:
In versions of windows before Vista, file sharing was unpassworded by default. If you shared files everyone on the same network as your computer could access (and alter) files in the share as they saw fit. Starting in Vista, in addition to a number of other security improvements for sharing, MS made it so sharing without a password was unavailable by default. This is the setting that reverts to the old behavior. Obviously, it shouldn't be turned off without also taking other steps to secure the shared files in shared network environments. Sharing with
Everyone
in such cases would be unwise.