Avast antivirus has twice blocked outside attempts at access on the WIN10 computer, even though I'm running with wired ethernet LAN (that never happened before I connected the Win10 computer so I don't know how it's happening now). For more security, how can I change sharing access from "Everyone" to just my Win7 computers?
By turning on Password-protected sharing instead
Turn On Password Protected Sharing - TenForumsTutorials
and not giving your Admin password to anybody else - see Steps 4, 9 of
A consolidated network setup checklist for Windows 10 and 11 - my post #4 - TenForums
Denis
Last edited by Try3; 23 May 2023 at 10:31.
If your using a router and nat no one can access files from the internet unless you port forward or something on the pc is downloading files. What did AV say had connected its strange unless your just using a modem with no router
Thank you Denis. But this will be difficult to do for access for the Win7 computers. Setting up (/modifying) the identical Admin accounts on the Win7 requires at the very least changing - knowing - the Win7 passwords. They're now setup to automatically logon and it's not certain what those passwords are. The additional requirements as you''ve clearly described are nonetheless more complicated than I want to try to do - and also risk really messing things up. But thank you for taking the time to post the requirements.
I'll just have to mange as is using Avast & Malwarebytes.
Does Avast tell you what the outside IP of the computer that is trying to connect, Are you sure it's outside or just one of your computers that use a different subnet
You can set up a new, additional Admin account on each of the Win10 & Win7 computers without knowing the passwords of the existing Admin accounts.
As a follow-on task with nothing to do with networking, you can also change the passwords of those Win7 Admin accounts without knowing their existing passwords [assuming they are local user accounts not MSAccount-linked user accounts]. You can look in SevenForums for the equivalent to Change Password of Local Account or Microsoft Account [Option 5] - TenForumsTutorials
Nothing I have posted risks messing up anything.
The checks I have listed are not complicated of themselves. There are merely quite a few of them. If you do not check each item then you will not know if that item has been set up correctly or is the cause of your network problems.
I have not retained the Windows 7 version of my checklist but, speaking from memory, the relevant items exist in Windows 7 but their locations are slightly differently named [but are still recognisable]. You'd need to search SevenForumsTutorials for equivalents of any items you cannot find yourself.
You could test your network while your third-party AVs are turned off & you are disconnected from the internet. Perhaps your network setup is already correct and it's just those third-party AVs that are acting up.
It's years since I have had to deal with such third-party utilities.
I would have expected them to generate a dialog showing the option to allow a new connection upon first detecting one.
Just out of interest, why are you still using Windows 7?
All the best,
Denis
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