I'm at wit's end - Windows 7 File Sharing

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[H]ard|Gawd
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Aug 23, 2001
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I'm running the Windows 7 RC on my desktop machine and I just want to share a folder on my network without requiring login credentials every time. I've tried everything I can think of and subsequent searching provides no help.

I set the sharing and security permissions to allow access to Everyone. I have the password for sharing requirement disabled in the Advanced Sharing Settings. All of my machines are on the same workgroup. I'm not using a HomeGroup. The Guest account doesn't change anything. And in fact, my laptop and my desktop both have the same username and password and it still asks for it there.

I can see the PC in Network Places. But when I try to open it, I get hassled for login credentials even before it gives me a shared items listing. The same happens when I try \\(Computer Name) or \\(IP Address).

I used to have the exact same problem when I was running XP on this machine and never figured out the problem. I figured a fresh install of a new OS would fix whatever problem I must have caused, but it seems to have followed me. Now I'm getting really frustrated by it. It didn't used to be this hard.
 
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You know what's funny? Once I was setting up a system at work like this, and I was having problems trying to get it to ask for the password.
 
Do you have both "Home or Work" and "Public" profiles set to Password Protected Sharing Off?
 
Have you checked the box for "File and Printer Sharing" in the Windows Firewall exception list? Also, have you tried the network as Private?
 
Same behavior even with the Windows Firewall completely off

What do you mean by "try the network as Private?"
 
Ah, gotcha. Nope. Same deal in all network "locations."

I'm about ready to just accept that this will never work. I can't understand why. I had the same problem with this machine when it had XP. Other XP machines in the house were configured exactly the same way and had no problems. I'm about to just write it off as a mysterious hardware issue even though that makes no sense.
 
I had the same problem. Turns out it was caused by the fact that I had the same username and password on both machines. When connecting from any other username it works flawlessly. I'm not sure why it hasn't been fixed in Windows 7 but whatever.
 
I just "fixed" an issue with my own little LAN here (just two machines on a router, basically, then cable Internet) with Windows 7 and the HomeGroup. I just did a clean install of build 7260 and was getting kinda pissed because it wouldn't let me join the workgroup we've had in place for a while now. Turns out I had asked the Wife to create the workgroup and use the same password I've been using on my own account on my own machine - as soon as we altered the HomeGroup password to something different, voila... everything works as expected again.
 
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