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Old 12-22-2019, 07:34 PM
harry harry is offline Windows 10 Office 2019
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Default Networking stopped working - "Cannot access \\NAME"

I recently bought a pair of new laptops with Windows 10. When I set up file & printer sharing between them, it worked fine. A couple of days later, I noticed that the networking was no longer working: each machine can see the other in File Explorer, but when I click on the other machine's folder, it says "Network error. Windows cannot access [\\NAME]. You do not have permission to access [\\NAME]."

(However, If I make a desktop shortcut to a folder on the other machine (e.g., "\\[NAME]\Users\Public"), that works!)

I also have a pair of older laptops with Windows 7, with file & printer sharing set up between them in exactly the same way, and the networking still works fine on those machines.

I have not changed any network settings or security permissions on any of the machines, although there has been an update (1909) on the Win 10 machines, and I am starting to suspect that the networking issue is something to do with the Win 10 update. While investigating the issue, I noticed an apparent anomaly in the security settings for C:\ on both Win 10 machines. These settings are the same on the Win 7 and Win 10 machines, except for the Authenticated Users group, which has "Modify" permissions on the Win 7 machines but is blank on the Win 10 machines, although the advanced settings for this group have "Modify" permissions on all of the machines (see screenshots attached).

Security permissions.pdf

What are the default security settings for the Authenticated Users group on C:\ on a Win 10 machine, and could this be causing my networking issue? (The machines are otherwise working fine.)

(I tried to change these settings but got "An error occurred while applying security information", presumably because the owner of C:\ is "TrustedInstaller". I gather I can take ownership to work around this, but I want to confirm the default settings first.)

Last edited by harry; 12-23-2019 at 06:49 PM.
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