workgroup login issue

Papa_Bear

Hi all,

I've recently got a problem connecting my laptop and desktop through my workgroup.

I keep getting the dialog below asking for pwd. However this only started in the last few days as i never needed to enter these details before and they are now not being accepted.

My laptop is running win7 home edition and the desktop run win200 pro (i know its old and EOL etc)

I haven't changed any user a/c details on either machine and only ever remember logging into my desktop from my laptop using my desktop login username and pwd once when i setup win7.

I don't know how to login to my laptop from my desktop as the laptop has no login on it (automatic login when setup first) and i dont know the login username and pwd to use in that case.

The only thing that has changed in recent days is that i reinstalled linux mint on my older laptop after it got messed up (from an update) and joined the workgroup (to use printer on desktop) but i don't see how this could have any effect on the situation (seperate laptops used at different time altogether - both laptops not even connected by ethernet cable at the same time).

I've looked on google for answers but just get articles about win7 homegroups which i don't have enabled (don't think i ever did either). I did see one youtube vid that said both machines on a workgroup have to have the same login a/c - confused by that one.

Any ideas?

You're on a workgroup so you have no centralised login. Therefore, you need to authenticate by using a username and password of a local user account on the target machine.

So to connect to the desktop from the laptop, you need to use a username and password from the desktop and vice versa. Blank passwords aren't accepted so it has to have a password of some sort.

It's possible that a Windows update on the laptop has disabled a version of SMB which is compatible with Windows 2000 but I can't confirm that.

Papa_Bear

Karsini wrote: »

It's possible that a Windows update on the laptop has disabled a version of SMB which is compatible with Windows 2000 but I can't confirm that.

Karsini you were correct it is NTLM 1/2 that was the reason.

I googled "Win 2000 workgroup connection issue" and found links to articles detailing how to correct the matter.

For anyone who is interested.

One way is to insert the DWORD entry into the registry with a value of 1

into Hkey_local_machine\system\currentcontrolset\control\LSA

called LmCompatibilityLevel

Of course it does reduce security on the syetems in question which is why MS changed the version of NTLM as it was compromised.