Windows 10: File & printer sharing 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, the sharing stopped working (possibly following a Windows or driver update), although I have not changed any network or security settings, and both machines can still see each other in File Explorer > Network, but when I try to access one from the other, I get an error message: “Network error. Windows cannot access \\[NAME]. You do not have permission to access [NAME]."

I tried Settings > Network & Internet > Network Reset, but it did not help.

I also have an older pair of laptops with Windows 7 on which I have file & printer sharing set up in exactly the same way, and it still works fine on them, and when I compared the network and security settings on the old and new laptops, they were all the same, except for one difference: in C:\ Properties > Security, the permissions for the SYSTEM, Administrators, and Users groups were all the same; however, on the new laptops, the permissions for the Authenticated Users group were all blank, whereas on the old laptops, these were ticked: Modify, Read & execute, List folder contents, Read, Write.

When I ticked these and clicked on "Apply" on the new laptops, I got a warning message ("You are about to change permissions on the root directory of the startup disk. This can reduce the security of your computer and cause users to have problems accessing files. Do you want to continue?"), and when I clicked on "Continue", I got a series of error messages (“An error occurred while applying security information to: ...”) for the following folders:
- C:\hiberfil.sys ["The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process."]
- C:\pagefile.sys ["The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process."]
- C:\Program Files ["Failed to enumerate objects in the container. Access is denied."]
- C:\Program Files (x86) ["Failed to enumerate objects in the container. Access is denied."]
- C:\Recovery ["Failed to enumerate objects in the container. Access is denied."]
- C:\swapfile.sys ["The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process."]
- C:\Windows ["Failed to enumerate objects in the container. Access is denied."]

I then noted that the owner of C:\ is “TrustedInstaller”, and I gather that I may need to change the ownership in order to change the permissions? I also gather that there are a couple of ways to do this, but I am wondering what is the best way and whether this could cause other problems?

(It is unclear whether the blank C:\ permissions for the Authenticated Users group are the reason behind the file & printer sharing issue, but I want to confirm the permissions before investigating further.)

:)

 

Can access Shared Files but not Shared Printers

Thank you for the Reply. However setting up and sharing the printer is not the issue, been doing that for 20 years. The issue is why all of the sudden there is no access to any of the 3 printers attached to that computer from other computers on the network.
All the sharing settings have been checked and are correct. The printers are setup to be shared. But still received Access Denied errors.

If I try to setup one of the shared printers on another computer i get asked for a username and password to connect to the remote computer. Yet, the password sharing has been turned off on it. No changes have been made recently to this computer. This
just started happening all of the sudden a few days ago.

And again, I can share files just fine between these computers, it's just the Printer sharing that is giving us issues. So I know the sharing settings are ok.

 

turning on file and printer sharing windows 10

Thank you for the update. What we can suggest now is to turn on File and Printer sharing in Command Prompt. Here are the steps to do it:

• Leave File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks turned
  on.
• Type CMD in the Search bar.
• Right-click on Command Prompt, and select Run as Administrator.
• Type netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group="File and Printer Sharing" new enable=Yes, and hit
  Enter.
• Exit from the command prompt, and check if it will work.

If issue persists, try turning it on using Powershell, and check if it works. Here are the steps:

• Leave File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks turned
  on.
• Type Powershell in the Search bar.
• Right-click on Windows PowerShell, and select
  Run as Administrator.
• Type netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group="File and Printer Sharing" new enable=Yes, and hit
  Enter.
• Close PowerShell.

Let us know how it goes.

 

Home Network and shared printer access problems

Hi,



Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.



We understand your concern, as you are having issue with accessing the files and printer within the network and in order to get clarity and to assist you accordingly, please reply with the answers to the questions below.

• What is the error message you get, while accessing the file or the Printer using Windows 7 PC?
  
• Are you aware of any recent changes on the PC, prior to this issue?
  

Meanwhile, we would suggest you to perform all the steps in all the PC that are connected in the network as suggested by Roohi Taj on January 8th, 2019
in this
post.



As an additional information please refer the below articles:

File sharing over a network in Windows 10

Share files in File Explorer



We await your response.



Aditya Roy

Microsoft Community – Moderator