I'm running two Windows 2008 R2 servers in a same subnet. Both servers doesn't have any roles installed and are in the same WORKGROUP. Both can ping each other fine but I can't access shared folders or public folders without providing credentials of the target PC. On both PC's password protected sharing is turned OFF. Guest accounts are disabled. This small problem is really driving mad as have I have wasted several hours trying to find a solution.

Hi. Do you want all to be able to access it without password, or do you have accounts with the same username/password on both. Both these ways would let you access the share without entering credentials. To access without username/password, just enable the guest account, and make sure the guest account / everyone has access (both on share and NTFS) Oscar Virot

I think you missed my point. I want to implement simple sharing without any bells and whistles. I have server1 with admin1 account and server2 with admin2 account. I just want admin2 account to access PUBLIC/Everyone shared folders in Server1 without entering any credentials in a WORKGROUP environment. To accomplish this I have disabled "Password protected sharing" in advanced sharing settings window. The problem is its still asking to enter server1 credentials whenever I try to access that server. EDIT: This time during the login screen I have supplied username as "Guest" with empty password and saved the credentials in the vault. This seem to have done the trick but I don't understand the purpose of "Password Protected Sharing" setting. No matter what I do its asking for credentials anyway be it guest or any other account. Am I missing something here? EDIT2: Just learned that enabling "Password Protected Sharing" disables guest account access on the target PC and only other accounts with passwords work. Thanks for the reply. I'm starting to get my head around it.

Hi Customer, When you turn off Password protected sharing function, it will remove guest account from “Deny access to this computer form network” local policy. You also need to add everyone or guest account to the share folder security setting. When you want to remote access this computer share folder, you just need to input account guest with no password at first time (click remember the credentials). Password Protected Sharing http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb727037.aspxRegards, Rick Tan