Windows 7 Logon Failure between two Win 7 machines

[phonetica]

Hi,

I have set 2 computers with Win 7 recently. One is my main workstation, and the other will be a home file server for documents, music, backups, etc.

Both are on Win 7.

Most of the time when I try to access the server or any of it's shared drives, it asks for credentials, which I input (logon/pass), and then I can access it fine as long as I'm logged in. Now, it has started refusing access. I haven't changed networking settings on either machine before this, and I have rebooted both machines.

In reading some other posts here, I have made sure they show the same time, and the same workgroup name, which is just "workgroup".

I can still connect to the server through Remote Desktop Connection, and then I can access shared files on the computer I'm on, through the RDC. This is a pretty long workaround. Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks!

(See pic for error msg)




Link Removed due to 404 Error

 

[Trouble]

Hi,

I have set 2 computers with Win 7 recently. One is my main workstation, and the other will be a home file server for documents, music, backups, etc.

Both are on Win 7.

Most of the time when I try to access the server or any of it's shared drives, it asks for credentials, which I input (logon/pass), and then I can access it fine as long as I'm logged in. Now, it has started refusing access. I haven't changed networking settings on either machine before this, and I have rebooted both machines.

In reading some other posts here, I have made sure they show the same time, and the same workgroup name, which is just "workgroup".

I can still connect to the server through Remote Desktop Connection, and then I can access shared files on the computer I'm on, through the RDC. This is a pretty long workaround. Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks!

(See pic for error msg)




Link Removed due to 404 Error

Phonetica:
For this to have been working and to have suddenly stopped, would lead me to believe that perhaps you have recently installed a third party firewall on one or both machines, or a third party AntiVirus / Internet Security Suite that includes a firewall type applet, or you've somehow mis-set something in the Windows firewall....so
Check and make sure these Services are Started on all Computers
Workstation
DHCP Client
DNS Client
Server
TCP/IP Netbios helper
Computer Browser
Make sure Network Discovery is turned on, on the Win 7 machines
Make sure file and printer sharing is enable on both and that local firewalls are supporting it. Temporarily uninstall any third party firewalls or Internet Security Suites that may include some type of Firewall applet.
Make sure NetBios over TCP/IP is enabled in the properties of IPv4 on you network.
Look for Bonjour service and temporarily set it to manual or disable and stop same with mdnsresponder. Also check services near the top for a peculiar string containing numbers and or special characters, disable and stop
The credential issue can usually be resolved by adding the username and password you're using on machine one to the user accounts on machine two and then doing it the other way around by adding the username and password you're using on machine two to the user accounts on machine one. Then adding them to the appropriate group to suit your sharing needs and removing them from any groups that may have conflicting permissions.
Let us know how you're doing.

 

[phonetica]

argh! the computer randomly froze and I lost a whole reply to your message. Starting for the 2nd time:

Thankyou for your quick response. I have checked - all the services you mentioned are running on both machines. F&P sharing, network discovery, NetBios over TCP/IP is enabled.

I don't see Bonjour or mdnsresponder at all. I have not installed any firewalls recently. The only security s/w I have is MS Security Essentials, which I installed right after building the two machines.

The Credential Manager service was not running, but starting it did not make a difference. I logged onto the Admin desktop and it worked fine - I clicked on Machine 2, it asked for name/pass, I provided, and I accessed the files. Still does not work from my other user acount/desktop.


I just want to hear someone telling me Microsoft (and all my s/w and h/w manufacturers) are working hard and soon I will stop seeing blue screens and random reboots. Other than that, I really like Win 7.

Thankyou once again, and please do let me know if you have any other ideas I can try.

Jeff

 

[Trouble]

Jeff:
Computer freezing and random rebooting may very well be indicitive of more serious problems, quite often underpowered by a less than adequate power supply, or one that may be defective. Sorry to here about these problems but they could be causing some of your network issues since a machine that doesn't shut down properly may be subject to local netbios name cache tables corruption. If this is only a two computer network, try fixing with static IP address assignments, ip address, default gateway, and primary dns. Then run from an elevated command prompt nbtstat -R this will flush any bad records and since the ip address is now permanently assigned the ip address and netbios name will always match.

 

[phonetica]

The freezing actually isn't random - it's so far just when I've had a lot of s/w, plugins, etc. that are cpu-intensive. I've got 450W of power, and not too many peripherals, so I think the PS is fine.

I just had the ssame problems with permissions from my laptop, however, but after a reboot on the laptop (which is on Win XP), the server asked for log/pass and everything works fine. Machine 1 (win 7) still can't access machine 2, from my standard user account. Only my admin account. This is quite frustrating. Could nbstat -R possibly help, even if I don't statically set IP's ?

Thanks,
Jeff

 

[Trouble]

No, probably not nbtstat is a utility for working with the netbios name table, which is a collection of ip addresses that are associated with what we used to call friendly names, basically the hostname or computer name of your machine. You need to make sure that first the machine 1 "Standard User Account" what ever that is, is also on machine 2. Then you need to examine the shares properties on machine two and check the sharing tab as well as the ntfs permissions under the security tab. Make sure that they are accurate and reflect what you are trying to do. Because these shares include groups as well as perhaps specific users, you will lastly have to examine the user ("Standard User Account") you are referring to in the post above and make sure that he is in the correct group or groups and that those groups have all the permissions that that user requires. Remember the sharing tab permissions are for control of users comming at you across the network, the serurity tab (ntfs permissions) are for locally logged on user, however they are autmatically combined when you create a share on an ntfs volume and when combined the most restrictive is always applied. Short explanation, let's say you create a new user on your Win7 machines, lets call him TestUser and his password is P@$$w0rd, now as a result of that he is automagically a member of the local users group. So when you look at you shares you will be looking at the permissions that impact the group "users" and another groups called "Authenticated Users", for the purposes of this explanation we are going to double click that user in local users and groups, then on the member of tab add him to the local "administrators group" and after we've successfully done that we are going to remove him from the "users group", this is a simple way of explicitly controlling how your shares are accessed and to whom they are available. I have found it generally much easier to not include a user in any extraneous group, other than the one you want him in. I hope I haven't confused you even more. Keep me posted.

 

[phonetica]

Thanks again, Randy. That makes sense. At first it seemed to be fine to log on to Machine 1 as user "Phoneticsound", and then just use my admin password for Machine 2 to log into Machine 2. I'll try matching up user accounts/permissions, and see how that goes. I may not get a chance for a few days however. I'll Keep you posted. Thanks again for your help so far, and Merry Christmas!

 

[Trouble]

Right back atcha, hope it works....and Merry Christmas to you as well