We have a server with Windows Server 2008 Standard installed. We added users and user groups in order for other computers to have access to specific shared folders and files. Obviously, we've set some shared folders to be accessed by some users but not others.
It all worked well until some day. I don't know exactly what happened then. Now, the majority of times whenever I try to access one of my shared folders, I get the message You do not have permission to access \\server\foldr, even though I have been given access to the folder, both in the sharing permissions and the NTFS ones.
This happens equally to all the network users. Only the folders marked for access by Everyone can be accessed.
Another curious thing is that when I go to Computer Management\Shared Folders\Sessions on the server, my client computer is enlisted as GUEST, instead of the user's name, although the Guest property is set to No.
I've already tried resetting permissions on the folder, adding new users, changing credentials on the client computer… nothing seems to work. Do you know what seems to be the problem?
Edit: Follow-up to Dmitry's questions:
Security event 552 does not appear on the logs. Instead, I'm getting event 4776 stating that I have logged in with the "Guest" logon account.
Accessing \\server\c$ asks for my credentials, but either they're not accepted or I do not have permissions to access c$. I have experienced this already when trying to map a network drive to \\server\foldr with specific credentials, somehow my credentials are never accepted.
Turning off UAC didn't help.
The clients' PCs have a range of Windows OS's from XP to 7. My PC in particular has Win 7 RC.
2nd Edit: I disabled the Guest account and found out that my client PC's username is different from the username I was trying to use (I really thought that they were equal, but apparently I changed it when I formatted and reinstalled the OS). So now my question is: is there any way that I can access the shared folders while keeping the current usernames on both server and client computers?
Best Answer
From your answer to another post that you are using a Workgroup, the most likely problems are that the user/pswd are different or don't exist on the server, or the user/pswd is not being passed in the correct syntax. In a Workgroup Users are local to each machine, JSmith on the server is not the same as JSmith on the workstation.
A Domain solves both of these issues and has many other advantages if you have more than 4-5 workstations. This is the best solution.
Option 2 is to setup a username and pswd on the server. This can be 1 server user for each wkstn user, 1 server user for each user security group desired: Accounting, Sales, Marketing, etc, or 1 server user for all users. The server username & pswd may, but are not required, to match the username and pswd on the wkstns. Don't use any blank passwords.
Create a batch file on each machine to map the shares as a drive letter and force authentication on the server. Place the batch file in a C:\Admin folder, place a shortcut to the batch file in the All Users Startup folder to have it run on logon, set it to run minimized. The syntax is:
"Net Use X: \Server\Share /User:Server\User Password".
"Net Use /help" will provide more examples.
Net Use X: /del will remove the drive mapping for testing, it will not delete any data.
You can also test authentication against the server with the Net Use command. If the authentication fails with "incorrect user name or password" then either the syntax, username, password or some combination of all 3 are wrong.
Option #2 is not secure and not recommended but could work as a temporary solution.