XP VM access to Non Windows LAN disks (VMWare) e.g from NAS disks

Hi folks

For those of you still using XP VM's running under VMWare (either workstation or VMPlayer) and you want to access NON Windows LAN shared disks e.g from a NAS - especially say these large TB devices you need to ensure that in the SAMBA config file on the NAS server(s) you add these 2 lines in the global section of the smb.conf file in the /etc/samba directory.

lanman auth=yes
ntlm auth=yes

You also need to enable SMBV1 on the Windows 10 Machines and also in the SAMBA config file add this line

min protocol = NT1

Then it will all work.

If you don't make the changes you will just be presented with the logon screen to access the NAS over and over again even if you enter the correct user (could be different from your Windows account) and password.

(For XP to and from W10 then when no SAMBA is involved just set the W10 machine to use SMBV1).

Any I.T admins etc -- I'm 100% aware of "Security" posed by sharing XP -- I'm though here talking about in general HOME type LANS so a lot of the security paranoia is totally overblown these days -- of course people want to "protect their jobs" but there's a mega huge difference in protecting coprporate / SME type of LANS , public Forums, and e-commerce etc to just sharing some files across your own home LAN and in any case you can always prevent the XP system from having any Internet access.

There's still a load of reasons why people still use older OS'es -- e.g specialized legacy expensive hardware / software -- some of the stuff I run on XP would cost me over 25,000 USD to upgrade perfectly working hardware / software -- some of this stuff has lifetimes of over 35 years (or more) before needing to be replaced.

One of the things I do part time is create personalised Vinyl records for people from their own music -- all the studio and vinyl cutting software / hardware is on an XP XM - I get the music and requests from the NAS, create the vinyls on the XP system, and then generate the invoices and postal labels for returning to customer etc via e-commerce on the NAS.

Cheers
jimbo