I have 3 workgrouped computers all W7 Pro. Network discovery seems to work. homegroup seems to work when I select "everyone" access. I am unable to limit access to specific users on other machines. This seems to be the case with shares created using the wizard as well. The problem is that I can't select the machine names for the non-local users in the workgroup. Under "locations" on the shares and permissions it only shows the local machine name and doesn't show the other computers in the workgroup. I thought that maybe creating the same user and password on both machines would solve the problem but that doesn't seem to work. So far the only way I can create shares is with "everyone" wide open access.

Hi, Thanks for posting in Technet. We are not possible to select non-local user when configuring shares in workgroup. Actually that does not make sense. Because when you access the computer, from example, computer A, from any other computer, you are using the credential on the computer A. If you use same username/password, for example, user1, you will use the credential of A/user1 to access the shares on A. If you do not use same name/password, and disable “Password protected sharing”, you will use the credential of A/Guest to access shares on A. If you do not use same name/password, and enable “Password protected sharing”, you need to enter username/password when access the share the first time. The username/password should be from the A computer. If you are using HomeGroup, you will use the credential of A/$HOMEGROUP. Anyway, one computer is not able to rcognize credential of other computers. Arthur Xie TechNet Subscriber Support in forum If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.com.Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

I have password protected sharing turned on. I have identical credentials on both machines. W7 says "Network error, you do not have permission to assess Share name when I attempt to connect using the specific user name in the share and/or NTFS permissions. It never asks me to enter credentials, just blocks access. I am however able to silently connect if I allow "everyone" in both the share permissions and the NTFS permissions. If I change either one to the specific user name with full access I get this error. Network discovery appears to be working in that I can see all of the machines and all of the shares from each of the three machines. Also, yesterday I did an image backup from one machine to the other and it did ask me for credentials to perform that particular operation on the networked machine. It also accepted the credentials in that case.

Arthur, I haven't given up on this. I hope you haven't given up on me?

Hi, If you enable HomeGroup, the network accesses will use the credential of $HOMEGROUP. Therefore, although you allow your account to access the shares, the user $HOMEGROUP is not included in the permission list and the access will be failed. You can disable HomeGroup on all computers, or add $HOMEGROUP user into the permission list. Arthur Xie TechNet Subscriber Support in forum If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.com.Please remember to click Mark as Answer on the post that helps you, and to click Unmark as Answer if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Thanks Arthur, it all makes sense now. It sounds like workgroup machines substitute the group $HOMEGROUP for authentication and ignore looking at the connected users credentials when they join homegroup. Thats so simple I wonder why I couldn't find that documented anywhere? I erroneously assumed that homegroup permissions were additive to the user's own permissions. Many thanks for clearing this up!