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How to make a share open to all so that Windows does not ask for credentials

avmad
Aspirant

How to make a share open to all so that Windows does not ask for credentials

Hello all,

 

I have a ReadyNAS 104 with 4 x 2TB drives in it.

 

I have spent the last couple of weeks being helped on this forum by some very knowledgable people because I had decided to move one of my laptops to Linux and needed help mounting my drive's shares as NFS.

 

Now I have come to access my NAS from another laptop on Windows 11 Pro and all the changes that I made to the permissions of my shares have completely broken my access to the shares from Windows.

 

Could someone tell me how to reset the SMB permissions in such a way that when I mount a share from Windows, no credentials are prompted for.

 

For background, I have taken screen shots of the current settings for one of the shares on the NAS. 

 

avmad_0-1738431188432.png

 

avmad_1-1738431210428.png

 

avmad_2-1738431230277.png

 

avmad_3-1738431246584.png

 

Hope someone can assist.

 

Cheers!

 

Message 1 of 5

Accepted Solutions
StephenB
Guru

Re: How to make a share open to all so that Windows does not ask for credentials


@avmad wrote:

 

So I assume you are referring to this add credential screen (which I will fill out twice):

 


Yes.

 


@avmad wrote:

 

Then I would create a user on the NAS with the same name and password for each share on the NAS that I want to expose to Windows.


You only want one user/password on the NAS for this.  Not different users for different shares.

 


@avmad wrote:

 

Are we therefore saying that the psuedo user 'Everyone' and also the 'Allow anonymous access' tick box no longer work and should probably be turned off?

 


Leave "Everyone" set as it is.  But if you only use windows, you can turn off "allow anonymous access" for SMB.  If you have some older devices (media streamers for example) you might need to leave that box checked.

 

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Message 4 of 5

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StephenB
Guru

Re: How to make a share open to all so that Windows does not ask for credentials

Windows has tightened up guest access over the years, so it is not that easy to open things up completely any more.

 

The easiest solution is to create an account on the NAS, and then apply that username/password to all the PCs using the Windows Credential manager.  Create one credential using the NAS IP address, and a second using the NAS hostname. 

Message 2 of 5
avmad
Aspirant

Re: How to make a share open to all so that Windows does not ask for credentials

Thanks StephenB.

 

So I assume you are referring to this add credential screen (which I will fill out twice):

 

avmad_0-1738444403324.png

 

Then I would create a user on the NAS with the same name and password for each share on the NAS that I want to expose to Windows.

 

Are we therefore saying that the psuedo user 'Everyone' and also the 'Allow anonymous access' tick box no longer work and should probably be turned off?

 

Thanks,

Message 3 of 5
StephenB
Guru

Re: How to make a share open to all so that Windows does not ask for credentials


@avmad wrote:

 

So I assume you are referring to this add credential screen (which I will fill out twice):

 


Yes.

 


@avmad wrote:

 

Then I would create a user on the NAS with the same name and password for each share on the NAS that I want to expose to Windows.


You only want one user/password on the NAS for this.  Not different users for different shares.

 


@avmad wrote:

 

Are we therefore saying that the psuedo user 'Everyone' and also the 'Allow anonymous access' tick box no longer work and should probably be turned off?

 


Leave "Everyone" set as it is.  But if you only use windows, you can turn off "allow anonymous access" for SMB.  If you have some older devices (media streamers for example) you might need to leave that box checked.

 

Message 4 of 5
avmad
Aspirant

Re: How to make a share open to all so that Windows does not ask for credentials

Thank you again!

 

Before I saw your reply, I removed the access for 'Everyone' for all shares and also unticked the 'anonymous access'.  Now I can access all shares from Windows with the new user/password I created.  I still need to check if my TV can see the shares (although, it's not the end of the world if it can't as I mostly use a media PC for viewing).

 

Can't thank you enough for your help StephenB!

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