You can’t access this shared folder because your organization’s security policies block unauthenticated guest access

Ray Huang 16 Reputation points
2020-08-05T05:51:36.057+00:00

Hi Sir

i have two PCs:

PC-A: Windows 10 1909
PC-B: Windows 7 (have a shared folder)

everything working well when PC-A is Windows 10 1803, after upgrade to 1909,
i will get below error when accessing PC-B shared folder "You can’t access this shared folder because your organization’s security policies block unauthenticated guest access"
15712-2018-03-02-17-02-52-1.png

after search on google, get the common solution is enable "Insecure guest logons" in GPO.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4046019/guest-access-in-smb2-disabled-by-default-in-windows-10-and-windows-ser

but i do not want to enable the insecure setting in GPO.

so the question is how can i config the PC-B that can meet the Win10-1909 security policy in order to allow me to access the PC-B shared folder?

Thanks,
Ray

Windows for business | Windows Client for IT Pros | Networking | Network connectivity and file sharing
Windows for business | Windows Client for IT Pros | Devices and deployment | Configure application groups
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13 answers

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  1. Kerry 1 Reputation point
    2022-09-29T15:40:04.923+00:00

    The registry hack didn't work for me. My company is on an Azure network and the group policies don't work with the local system. I had to support and fix this in two ways. I have multiple users not on the Azure network that need to access it via SMB1 (guest access) and those on the Azure network to use a username and password. The difficulty in figuring this out is the Linux Samba share would first attempt to log the user in with the Windows username (which doesn't have samba access) and fails over to guest since the linux [global] is set to map to guest = Bad User but allows guest access to certain folders. I needed to create a user on the linux machine and give it samba access. Then on the windows machine, I needed to open the Credential Manager and add a new credential. Add the server's name, the new username you created on the linux machine and the samba password. The windows machine will use this credential instead of the windows username and it gave me access.

    The best answer is to map to guest = Never and make all the users use the samba user name and password, but they will all eventually move to the Azure network and this way I can support them via a slow support set versus trying to support 100+ users all at once.

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  2. Tim Leslie 1 Reputation point
    2021-05-15T14:36:50.997+00:00

    The reg hack and enabling SMB1 let me access a shared drive on a Raspberry Pi again, which stopped working after a power outage yesterday. I'm on 20H2. Thanks, everyone!!

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  3. هشام محمد على المرابع 5 Reputation points
    2023-10-25T09:37:51.99+00:00

    1- Run and write GPEdit Enter

    2- follow the graphGPedit

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-08-11T07:50:46.547+00:00

    Hi ,

    >>can i upgrade the PC-B to Windows 10 1909, will it resolve the insecure issue?

    No.

    In your case, the main reason is because Guest account access to a remote server is disabled in windows 10 1709 and later version.

    If you are using guest account on windows 10 and cannot enable insecure Guest logons by registry or GPO, then whatever PC-B's OS version is windows 10 or not, you still cannot resolve the insecure issue.

    As you can see from the following article :

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4046019/guest-access-in-smb2-disabled-by-default-in-windows-10-and-windows-ser

    ---Please Accept as answer if the reply is helpful---

    Best Regards,

    Candy

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-08-11T05:53:05.577+00:00

    Hi ,

    Since A cannot access B's shared folder, we need to do settings on A. We don't need to do anything on B and there is nothing we can do to let B meet the security policy.

    If you cannot enable insecure Guest logons by registry or GPO on A (in your case, it is windows 10 1909), I think there is no way could achieve your goal.

    Hope this can help you understand better.

    Best Regards,
    Candy

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