Not able to do workgroup-based sharing between Win10 PCs

History: Have a Win8.1 desktop that I have been using as a "file-server" by sharing the drives as read (for Everyone) and sharing a folder on each drive as Read/Write (for Everyone). This has been working fine -- after I manually added NETWORK to the security and sharing permissions for each drive, and for each of the shared folders.

So, I recently added Win10 to that desktop (because I am planning to switch over to it) and went through all the tedious steps of setting up security and sharing the same way -- and when I try to connect to that PC, I get a credentials pop-up box.

So, I rebooted the PC into Win8.1, went back through all the Security and Sharing settings in the properties tabs -- and confirmed that those settings are identical in Win10. And, I confirmed that I can connect to the Win8.1 drives by simply clicking them in File Explorer.

The drives are set for Read for Everyone, and I have confirned that password-protected sharing is turned off on both the host machine, and the machines trying to connect to it.

When I tried accessing a drive from File Explorer, I got the message that I do not have the permissions needed to do that!

I really do not want to have to go into every device that needs to access this file server and enter the credentials to log in -- so I am asking what else I can either look at or try...

You say you set permissions on the PC did you set them for the share and also NTFS?

Samuria said:

You say you set permissions on the PC did you set them for the share and also NTFS?

As to the share, I set permissions on the Security tab and also on the Sharing tab.

As to NTFS, I don't understand the question.

Share lets you access the share but then for you to see read/write files the NTFS perrmisionson the folder kick in so if they are set to a specific users and deny for everyone else you wont get anywhere. People often try and share folders in a user profile and by default even admin on the local pc will have access denied. You need to ensure all the folders your shareing have the right perrmisions on them when you look at via explorer security tab

I remember to have had similar problems some time ago from my administrator account. My solution was: create a user account with name and password just for sharing purposes. After entering these, I had immediately access to the shared volume. My surprise was that this was the first but also the last time that Windows asked for the credentials, and thereafter I always had as an administrator immediate access.