Creating a samba share in windows 10

pmennen · 18 Jan 2017

jimbo45 said:

If using an Android phone / tablet try installing ES file explorer (on the android device) --- this will scan a LAN and pick up Windows systems --you'll have to log in with User / Password the first time.

Ok, I tried that on my phone with ES file explorer and it does connect and is able to see the files on my desktop computer. One confusing thing was that if the computer is using a microsoft account for the password, when another windows computer asked for the credentials you can use both the microsoft username (usually an email address) and the microsoft password. However with an android device, you still use the microsoft password, but you must use the user name of the local account. Otherwise it doesn't work. (Couldn't find this documented, but found out by trial and error).

Anyway what this leads me to is that authenticated samba/cifs (or whatever it's called) works fine on windows 10, so my only conclusion is that the bluray player I'm trying to interface with does not support authenticated samba/cifs. It does have a menu to enter the cifs username and password, but that doesn't mean it actually works. So I either need to swap that device out with one that works properly, or a cheaper way would be to use unauthenticated sharing (which I know works because I have used that before with windows 7 and winXP).

clam1952 wrote>Had this problem too - it's because Win10 insists on an authenticated SMB login.>You can disable it by creating the following value (a DWORD):>HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanWorkstation\Parameters\AllowInsecureGuestAuth>S et the value to 1 , it should work straight away then.

Yes, I had seen clam1952's suggestion before and I have already entered that key. (See attached image).
However windows 10 still seems to require authentication with a username and password. So I'm still have not found
any luck with that approach.

Creating a samba share in windows 10-allowinsecure.png

bro67 · 19 Jan 2017

You have to go into the settings for that Windows login by pressing the i in the circle. Then turn on "Show Admin Shares". I have mine set to also show Hidden Files. Support DFS is turned off, since it is for my Synology NAS. On my iPhone I use Net Analyzer to show all devices on my network and the Speed test is pretty spot on.

pmennen · 19 Jan 2017

bro67 said:

You have to go into the settings for that Windows login by pressing the i in the circle. Then turn on "Show Admin Shares". I have mine set to also show Hidden Files. Support DFS is turned off, since it is for my Synology NAS. On my iPhone I use Net Analyzer to show all devices on my network and the Speed test is pretty spot on.

Are you on my last topic (i.e. how to enable unauthenticated shares)? [That's the main thing I now want to get out of this thread.]
What windows login are you talking about? I don't think I have a windows login since I have disabled using passwords for login. When I turn on the computer, it goes immediately to my desktop. Also what does "i in the circle" refer to? I don't ever remember seeing anything that looks like an i in a circle. Also I don't know what Admin shares are. When I access my computer from the Android ES file manager, in addition to (for example) drive E (which has all my work files and folders in it) I also see something called E$. Is that the Admin share? If so, what is its value? When I select it from ES file manager it doesn't show anything in it.
Sorry for all the stupid questions, but I don't speak "network" ... just plain old English.

bro67 · 19 Jan 2017

See my part a couple of paragraphs down about stopping this thread and starting a new one dedicated to the DLNA stuff if you think that we have gotten this thread a little muddy with all of the basics covered and now we are dedicating troubleshooting each part to get you up and running.

The DRM/DLNA devices you should be able to access with VLC. The Windows Login can be just for shares or for accessing the machine to be able to do things that you require a user to have a password. Your shares can be set for no password, but since there is an issue with the SAMBA that Microsoft uses, you have to still enter a password. Messed up I know, that is their fault when they stopped users from being able to use a Guest session.

CIFS is just an extension of Samba. When we deal with the whole Linux vs. Windows shares, you will tend to see most of us just post Samba, since it is what is doing the heavy work.

When I setup a Windows 10 machine, I just set it up with a "Local" account, since the whole email login for Microsoft's "Cloud" login tends to mess up with some elder versions of Samba that may be in use with some Linux Distro's.

If you change your profile to be local with just a username as what you use here, that can eliminate a lot of issues. If you are not using Classic Shell or Start 10, you have to go through Control Panel to check your Logins under your profile for the Network stuff. It can be done with a Startup Script also to make sure that you have those shares connected.

Your Bluray player is just looking for DLNA devices, which VLC can handle or in my case, my Synology NAS handles all of that, since I keep all media on it. The manufacturers use a standard Cast protocol, which can cause issues with say iOS. I use a Aircast app called Air Music.

What if we stop this thread and create a new one to deal with the DLNA stuff. The login stuff Jimbo may be able to work with you on that, since he has spent more time with Linux. If I do anything with a Linux Server, I use Webmin to allow me to go in and check some things that I do with a bench server I have.

You can check to make sure that your Linux shares are loaded at boot with your Linux system. Use this guide, which explains to make sure CIFS-Utils is installed. MountWindowsSharesPermanently - Ubuntu Wiki

pmennen · 19 Jan 2017

bro67 said:

Your shares can be set for no password, but since there is an issue with the SAMBA that Microsoft uses, you have to still enter a password. Messed up I know, that is their fault when they stopped users from being able to use a Guest session.

Thanks a lot for all your replies bro67 ... but I'm still having difficulty understanding you. Your earlier reply was suggesting a registry change to allow unauthenticated samba access, but above you are suggesting that it can't be done. I would like to know which, so if it is not possible I can give up on that approach. Will changing from my microsoft account to a local account help with the unauthenticated shares? (I am using classic shell - since the default win10 start menu sucks if you ask me.)

bro67 said:

Your Bluray player is just looking for DLNA devices ...

I'm not sure where you got that idea, since I haven't mentioned DLNA. Remember I said the player can see the shared drives on my old winXP laptop, and winXP doesn't support DLNA (at least not natively). Back when I bought my bluray player (perhaps 5 years ago or more?), I bought one that used DLNA. I never got it to work reliably so I returned it and got one that used the traditional Samba/CIFS networking. This has worked flawlessly for me for years (well except when win10 came along). Perhaps DLNA has improved a lot back since then, but it left a bad taste in my memory. I'm not sure why we needed yet another networking protocol.

bro67 said:

You can check to make sure that your Linux shares are loaded at boot with your Linux system. Use this guide, which explains to make sure CIFS-Utils is installed.

I'm not sure what linux system you are now referring to? My Android devices I was testing with ES file manager? Although they run linux in the background I didn't think I have (or want) access to that. Likewise, although I am fairly certain my bluray player is running linux, I also have no access to that and can't configure it in any way other than entering a CIFS/samba username and password (as I've mentioned several times already, but perhaps nobody believes).

~Paul

bro67 · 20 Jan 2017

Editing the registry does not always work with Home. It used to be a quick fix with XP when it would not work with a Linux machine that had Samba Shares or a person was trying to access Windows shares from Linux.

Android is basically Linux in how it is written, but it is made to be lightweight and is used mostly for streaming devices.

With Android you do have to use something to work as a FTP server or able to allow you to access shares on the network. With Android it is all done through the app's, since Google did not incorporate that as a separate feature. On my NVIDIA Shield, I run ANDFTP on it to allow me to access network shares. It does not always connect to them in the background, because that is a part of the security features with Android.

Majority of Blu-Ray players still use Java. Those that may used embedded Linux can be more expensive.

I would break down each issue that you are dealing with. First step is to get all machines on the network to connect and be able to get to the outside world. The next would be deciding what you are going to share and how you are going to share it. Along with if it is Media that is Music, videos or ripped DVD files.

With some Android devices you do have to enable the Developer options before you may be able to get it to access other computers. I honestly think that Android embedded devices are a whole lot harder to work with, especially with apps like Kodi.