Win 10 Suddenly asking for Network Credentials

Hello everyone,

I'm new to the group. I have an interesting network problem. I'll try to be brief. I have four computers running Windows 10, 7 and XP Pro networked that use a common workgroup. Everything was working fine for months until just recently the computer running Windows 10 all of a sudden asks me to enter a Network username and password. All computers see each other and are accessible except now all of a sudden the Windows 10 machine asks for network credentials. None of my machines have any passwords set anywhere. They are all in my home. No new hardware or software was added. Of course I went into the Windows 10 machine and double checked the permissions and everything looks OK. Can anyone help me with this problem?

I truly appreciate any help you can give me.

Thank you,
Ivan

Thank you, but I never had any credentials set, nor do I want them. Why would this happen all of a sudden?

How to you connect to win10 cmd line, explorer or other? It possible that the latest security update against ransomware has forced it to ask who are you. It not a good idea to run without that as anyone or anything can then spread on you network. Simply enter the details when asked.
The fact you are running Xp on a network puts you at high risk of ransome ware have you patched the xp pc?

Thank you for the tip. I just never thought it was necessary to use a username and password. I connect using explorer, all computers by Ethernet or Wi-Fi through my Verizon FiOS Gigabit router. How would I go about patching XP? I have service pack 3 installed. I wouldn't know exactly how to set passwords on the three different OSs. Would they just for network access?

When you connect in explorer there is an option to enter password simple enter username and password for a user thats on the pc your connecting to. By default windows passes the username password your logged in as so if you have the same username password on the pc your straight in. get the xp patch from Microsoft Update Catalog)

Thank you. I am administrator on all the machines and I definitely do not want a login password for

Sorry. I am replying on my smartphone and accidentally sent the previous reply. I don't want a password to log in on any of the machines, just a username / password for network access only. Is that possible with 10, 7 and XP? I never got involved with passwords before.

Hey Ivan8ias,
Have you checked Control Panel > Network and Sharing Center > Change Advance Sharing Settings then Under All Networks, Turn Off Password Protecting Sharing.

If you haven't already ... try adding Everyone to the Share Permissions, if the above doesn't work.

Thank you Eagle51. Already tried both methods. When I did that on the Windows 10 machine it messed up my Users folder and created another folder with the user's name which I couldn't delete under c drive and the user didn't appear on my network, so I had to go to a restore point to get back to where I was.