I have a PC with Windows Home edition and a machine running Windows Server 2008 R2 in a domain. Anytime I connect to its shared folders I get prompted for a username and password. How can I set a policy in Active Directory for that server not to ask for username and password?
Windows – How to disable username and password request when accessing the shared folders on Windows Server 2008 R2 for Windows home edition user
active-directoryauthenticationwindowswindows-server-2008
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well if you go to \\server you'll get prompted cuz you don't have permissions. if you goto \server\share and the share has guest perms on both the share and ntfs acls then you won't get prompted.
Best Answer
The versions of Windows that aren't earmarked "Professional" cannot join a Windows Active Directory domain, but you can cheat and do what's sometimes referred to as the "poor man's domain trust". Basically, you create an account in the Active Directory domain that matches the username / password used on the non-Domain-joined PC. Once you've done this, access to domain resources from the non-Domain-joined PC will work as though the PC is domain-joined, because the PC is authenticating with a username / password that ends up being valid in the domain.
This is preferable to enabling the Guest account because it doesn't open up access to unauthenticated users.