Desktop and laptop can't see each other over Ethernet

Involute said:

Thanks for your help, Bree. I'm getting closer, but still not there. There were one or two boxes that hadn't been checked in the sharing process, so now I can see both computers under Network in File Explorer. However:
1. When I click on the desktop from the laptop, I get the Windows Security - Enter Network Credentials dialog. It has the username for the desktop, but doesn't recognize the password. This is the password I use to log into the Microsoft account management web site.

I think it wants the local account password, not the MS account one. If you can't work out what that is, it might be easier to create a new local account on the desktop (called 'Sharing' perhaps?) and give that account both the ntfs file permissions and share permissions it needs to access whatever you want to see on the desktop.

2. When I click on the laptop from the desktop, I get a Network Error dialog saying Windows cannot access the laptop. I don't have permission.

Permissions again. There are two different types of permissions you can set on the laptop. The first is the Share permission, the second is the file permissions.

What I have done on all the PCs on my network is create a C:\Temp folder for use in transferring files. First of all I turn off Password Protected Sharing so that access is only controlled by share and file permissions.

Turn On or Off Password Protected Sharing in Windows 10 | Windows 10 Tutorials

I then share C:\Temp as Temp and grant the Everyone group full control.



Then I edit the security permissions of the Temp folder to add the Everyone group and grant it full control.



The Temp share on any of my PCs is fully accessible by anyone on my network who knows the name and password of a local account on the PC they want to connect to. As it's only me on my network, that's not a security concern. Even if it was, by definition Temp is just a staging post, once a file has been copied to a PC it can be moved out of Temp to its intended destination - which won't be shared.