Windows 7 prompts for password even though password protected sharing is off

By Kent February 15, 2011 Featured, Fixes 3 Comments

You may run into this:

You are sharing files between two Windows 7 computers on the same network.
You go into the Network and Sharing center and turn off password protected sharing.
You try to access the shared resource from another computer and it still prompts you for a username and password.

Here’s what I did to solve it. On the computer that hosts the shared resource:

Make sure the Guest account is not disabled
Make sure the Guest account does not have a password. To make sure of this, go into Local Users and Computer and reset the Guest account password. Give it a blank password.
Make sure the Guest account is not denied access from the network. To do this, go into Local Security Policy and drill down to Local Policies -> User Rights Assignment. Look for a policy called “Deny access to this computer from the network.” If the Guest account is listed there, delete it.

Self-proclaimed computer geek

Q October 21, 2011

Ok, so none of that worked for me, this did

Control Panel
Administrative Tools
Local Security Policy
Security Options
set “Network access: Sharing and security model for local accounts” to “Guest only – local users authenticate as Guest”

It is supposed to be set that way as default for non domain computers but mine wasn’t
You might want to do #3 above also, guest wasn’t listed under mine.
Daniel November 4, 2011

I also had to set the ‘Network Access: Let Everyone permissions apply to anonymous users’ to Enabled
George January 14, 2014

😛 Fantastic Q’s instruction worked for me, changing the Sharing & Security model. Thanks for the article!

Kent Oyer