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Author Topic: Windows 7 not able to connect to network shares  (Read 4328 times)

BGM

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Windows 7 not able to connect to network shares
« on: July 23, 2019, 06:52 PM »
My Windows 7 Workstation keeps having an issue where it cannot connect to network shares on other Windows 7 machines.  I am logged in using a domain account and am domain admin.

Sometimes I can connect, other times no.
It makes no difference if I use the computer's name nor their ip address.
I can always ping the other computer.
The other computer can access MY network shares with no problem.
I've gone through all the obvious stuff.
Netbios is enabled in the ipv4 settings for the adapter.
I can access the network shares on our servers.
Sometimes I can access the other Win7 share, and after awhile, then I can't do it anymore.
Rebooting doesn't help.
All the ip addresses are assigned by the DHCP server and never change.
When I try the network share, I receive a message: "The specified server cannot perform the requested operation".
Error code: 0x80070035
The network path was not found.  (even though I can ping the machine)

I've had this problem for a long time and can't solve it.  Any ideas?

Ath

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Re: Windows 7 not able to connect to network shares
« Reply #1 on: July 24, 2019, 01:09 AM »
Do users on all computers login using a domain account or only you from your computer?

Shades

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Re: Windows 7 not able to connect to network shares
« Reply #2 on: July 24, 2019, 08:57 AM »
You could try to reset WinSock on your computer. One of the better manuals on how to do this (on almost any version of Windows), can be found here.

Removing and re-installing the driver from your networking device (in device manager) can sometimes help too.

BGM

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Re: Windows 7 not able to connect to network shares
« Reply #3 on: July 24, 2019, 09:00 AM »
Yes and no.

I have the same problem with domain-joined computers as well as non-domain computers, but strangely enough, not with the domain servers.

Reset Winsock  (I like to use Complete Internet Repair for these things; it's wonderful)
Flushed DNS
Renew WINS registrations

I tried disabling Flow Control on the network adapter driver settings.
I also removed the "Windows Network Client" from my network adapter and then re-installed it.


For example, I have this non-domain-connected laptop here next to me.  From this machine, I can connect to my domain workstation easily and never with any issue.  However, from my domain workstation, I cannot connect to the laptop.  Yesterday I could do it for several hours, but now I can't, no matter what I do.

I can also get this:
Network Error
Error code: 0x80004005
Unspecified error

Other times, when I working with a laptop, I cannot connect to it from my workstation until I first use the laptop to access my workstations public share.  After that I can then connect to the laptop from the workstation.  This workaround works about 30% of the time. 
« Last Edit: July 24, 2019, 09:19 AM by BGM »

x16wda

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Re: Windows 7 not able to connect to network shares
« Reply #4 on: July 26, 2019, 08:57 AM »
Rings a bell. I found this in my old notes but looks like you've done this, but I could swear there's something else... let me look at more notes... :-)

"box would ping but could not connect to any mapped resources, kept giving "the network location could not be reached".  took out of domain, would not join back.
to fix, at a command prompt:
        netsh int ip reset c:\mylog.txt
then reboot.  the log file name in the above command is optional, but if you view the log after it may display incorrect values that the command fixed.
worked for brenda"
vi vi vi - editor of the beast

superboyac

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Re: Windows 7 not able to connect to network shares
« Reply #5 on: July 26, 2019, 11:35 AM »
probably unrelated....
i had a hard time getting network computers to show up on a win10 machine recently.  problem turned out that windows now disables smb so you dont see network computers in the network neighborhood.  but if you type the address directly or the ip it still works.  so sounds different than your problem.  it was also reported as being a win10 problem.

Shades

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Re: Windows 7 not able to connect to network shares
« Reply #6 on: July 26, 2019, 08:52 PM »
SMBv1 should be disabled, as it has become very unsafe to use.

Not every computer/network configuration likes that though. Expect trouble with older versions of Linux trying to communicate Windows 7 or vice versa. Can be fixed by upgrading network drivers and/or enabling SMBv2, or even better SMBv3, if the network equipment in your systems has support for that. Not a given with built-in network cards on not that modern motherboards or el cheapo NICs you might have added.

Instructions on how to (temporarily) re-enable the SMBv1 protocol can be found at this link. The instructions are for Windows 10, but the method is valid for most, if not all, versions of Windows.