Windows 7 & 8 Windows Shares Invalid User and Password

Thanx Mike, I already used method 1 as I am alone. Following the user guide I am prompted to the Settings/Network Settings/Wireless. My Network setup has only Automatic and Manaul, no Wireless. I am using a Netgear 3400 router and Netgear 3100 wireless adapter. I am willing to buy everything new and start over as I did not set up this system but hired it done. Big mistake I now think. Your help is much appreciated.

BTW I run only the WD Live TV Plus and one or two computers on this network.

I repled to your similar message entitled Wireless: as that is a more appropriate place for discussing these wireless issues.

Hi there,

Just cruising the posts for a solution to my problem.  Trying to set up a wd live tv for my Dad.  I am getting the same issue some others have. The pc comes up as owner-PC on the wd live and keeps asking for a login password. The PC itself does not use one.  I found a you tube vid on the proccess and it worked initially.I set up the file sharing etc and it worked…initially.  The next day I am back to the password issue as well as connot find content.

Pops is getting frustrated as the only reason he bought the unit was so that he could run the streaming and file sharing. I havent tried the streaming yet.lol

Appreciate your help.

WD is on the 1.15 version

windows 7 home that was preinstalled on the laptop

I’m with roscolo on this one.  I never know from one day to the next if windows shares is going to work with my WD Live.  Usualy just end up copying the file to a stick and plugging it in.

What gets me is the totally random aspect of it, one day it works next day it doesn’t.

@hardhug1

Make sure you are setting up network shares correctly.  See this link:  How to resolve Network shares access problems

Also, a PC that shows up as “Owner-PC” is the default name of PC if it was never given a name.  Are you sure this PC was set up correctly?

This forum is littered with people complaining about the inability of the WD to see shares across the network, so it is pretty obvious the device has very poor networking support. 

All the “guides” filled with the basics like make sure you are the same workgroup didn’t do anything for me. 

What did solve my problem was turning off the two homegroup services on every PC that had them.  Services.msc via run, stop the two services that start with “HomeGroup”, then disable them.  After that WD works like a champ.  If I turn the 2 services back on, WD can’t see the shares again.

What made this very frustrating was that HomeGroup didn’t exist in XP, so if my W7 (and now W8) PCs happened to be off, XP PCs on WD worked fine.  If W7/W8 PCs were on, the ole spinning wheel, hence why WD would work some of the time. 

dcb917 wrote:

This forum is littered with people complaining about the inability of the WD to see shares across the network, so it is pretty obvious the device has very poor networking support. 

 

 

Actually, the problem is not that a WD player has poor networking support; it has good support – if all is setup properly.  The forum is “littered with” people who have different PCs, routers, and other network devices.  These devices are most often not set up properly, due to a number of factors; some being that nobody downloads and reads the complete maual for the WD, and if they do, many “don’t get it”, because it involves networking, and networking  is not easy at first to grasp and setup.  Throw in wireless signals and the plot thickens

 

Even in your own case, you left Windows Homesharing set to on, and since Windows homesharing is a “Windows thing”  that no other company uses, it screws up a traditional network (which the WD uses.)  Also your conglomeration of three different Windows operating system going on doesn’t help things, either.

 

Then, after all this, there is the Windows “master browser” issue that can get things fouled up – especially in a case like yours with lots of different PCs on.

 

The thing that solved any master browser issues in my system, was that my new router took over as permanent master browser once I attached a hard drive with media on it.  Anyone with a modern router that has this feature ought to attach a drive to it.

 

1 Like

You are looking at this the wrong way.  People don’t care if the issue is some MS deficiency, they just want it to work, aka plug and play.  A company will go out of business pretty quickly if they have that mindset…“yeah it is real tough to get our product to work, but hey not our fault, it is the giant in our industry’s fault our stuff doesn’t work”.

I view this as poor networking support.  They could get away with poor Linux support, but ignoring the fact that your stuff doesn’t work with a giant is dumb.  HP is not going to go broke if their printers can’t speak Linuix, but they will if they stop talking MS.

A smarttv I just bought, somehow magically connected to my shares without issue.  Their programmers somehow managed to write firmware that is plug and play, no master browser fix, no turning off homegroups etc etc.  Very straight forward doc, same workgroup, pick the sssid, enter the passphrase and volia I can see and play shares.  The most time consuming aspect was adding my lengthy passphrase via their remote.

dcb917 wrote:

A smarttv I just bought, somehow magically connected to my shares without issue. 

I’m curious which TV you bought.  I’ve not seen many (any?) that use Microsoft networks.  All I’ve seen only use DLNA.

The end user does not care what technology is used, as long as it works.   

The last thing I want is a WD spinner when I sit down to watch something.

I use a LG and a Vizio to stream from shares.  Both fall short of the WD in terms of of being able to “play anything”, though the LG is pretty darn good. 

Both find the shares everytime.

Not everyone has network issues.  I had some at first, but dug in, learned more, got things set properly, and I have no network issues anymore (with a WD or anything else) , and we have over twenty devices connected to the home network today and they’re working fine.  I’ve noticed that quite a few folks try to “over-fix” things not working with their system by uninstalling/reinstalling Windows or dinking around in the registry, etc to make things work and end up mucking it up further.

dcb917 wrote:

The end user does not care what technology is used, as long as it works.   I use a LG and a Vizio to stream from shares. 

Both find the shares everytime.

No LG TVs that I’ve ever seen stream from shares, and I looked extensively before I bought mine.  Not too familiar with Vizio.  Some LG Bluray players, do support Windows shares, though, for some weird reason.   That’s why I asked you what TV you’re using (model number, please, as LG has made hundreds of TVs…)

If you’re not allowed to specify a user-ID and password when you’re connecting to your shares, then you’re not using compliant CIFS.  99.9% chance you’re using DLNA.   And, BTW, the WDTV supports DLNA as well, so since you’re having great luck with that, use DLNA instead.

The appearance right now is that you’re lambasting WD for not working with your network, while praising products that don’t even support what you’re demanding of the WD.  :laughing:

TonyPh12345 wrote:


 

The appearance right now is that you’re lambasting WD for not working with your network, while praising products that don’t even support what you’re demanding of the WD.  :laughing:

 

Boy you need to go back and read a bit.  Never said the WDTV doesn’t work on my network.  The problem is all the things I had to discover and change to get the silly thing to work.  None of which are documented by WD and are way beyond  the average end user.  Hence why so many complain about the networking issues in these forums.  That stands by itself and your and my difference of opinion regarding other products / technologies isn’t really relevant.  WD networking support stinks regardless.

dcb917 wrote:Never said the WDTV doesn’t work on my network. 

You did, several times.   For instance, your opening remark said:

dcb917 wrote:

All the “guides” filled with the basics like make sure you are the same workgroup didn’t do anything for me.  

What did solve my problem … hence why WD would work some of the time. 

So, yeah, numerous times you mentioned that it didn’t work on your network.  Otherwise, your whole point is moot.

Not only that, but I solved your issue, and you’re still going on about how it doesn’t work.  

Hello,

Keep it friendly guys, everybody here is just trying to help.

LOL  Yes you are correct, technically I did say the WDTV did not work on my network.  
Not sure why, but it didn’t work when sitting on the car seat during the ride home from Best Buy.

Oddly It didn’t work on my network before being plugged into power either.

It worked some of the time after I followed the WD doc. Unsatisfied with some of the time, I persevered, mainly because my wife started throwing things when the WD spinner appeared.

No improvement after I followed a post on using CMD prompt to jack with the master browser.  I thought seriously CMD prompt is what it takes??

No improvement after a reg hack cited in these forums.  Regedit, now that is something we want the average home user messing with.

Same for DMZ and static IP assignment, didn’t make much sense, but what they heck I tried both.

I isolated the issue to homegroups and once I disabled those services it worked like a champ and has ever since.

So let me restate this.  After a lot of up front effort I got the WD to work and it has worked for many months since.  
So stick with me here….my WD works great today and has for months, and I know this is a toughie, but I still think the networking support stinks.  I will continue to believe that until WD has a product that a) can be implemented by an average end user as advertised and b) can be done so by following their doc.

BTW I don’t remember you solving anything for me.

Before you ask why I use the WD…a) it now works and b) it will play anything, even things VLC won’t play which is an accomplishment.

And guess what, it worked on my network right from the start without me having to jump through any of the hoops you did. Apparently lots more average users don’t have problems either considering the percentage of complainers.

Techflaws wrote:

And guess what, it worked on my network right from the start without me having to jump through any of the hoops you did. Apparently lots more average users don’t have problems either considering the percentage of complainers.

Well, the first one I set up had issues, but it took me a while to learn to set up a network correctly (I never had done so before I got a WD) and it took a year to figure out why I was getting the “no media in the music folder”.  It turned out it was a Microsoft Win 7 glich that happened because I had a ton of music files.  The solution to this was the subject of my first post here.

When I set up my second unit (a used one) I finally had to declare it defective after some serious troubleshooting, but I had another new one in box.  It set up perfectly with no problems at all with unit or network.  I had networking figured out by then, and that gave me the assurance that the used unit was bad, and the new one that replaced it confirmed it.

I said it before and I’ll say it again:  Setting up a home network to work correctly is NOT for the average person with no, or low, technical skills, and too many of these people attempt to do it, and end up making a mistake or two along the way, and then blame the WD media player.  If a network is set up properly, and the unit is not defective in any way, it all goes together and works like a charm.

Techflaws wrote:

And guess what, it worked on my network right from the start without me having to jump through any of the hoops you did. Apparently lots more average users don’t have problems either considering the percentage of complainers.

Had I had a simpler network, this thing would have worked out of the box for me too. Whoop dee do.

I would agree fewer post networking issues these days There is a reason for that, if you search for “network shares” you get 86 pages of results, so there is a lot more help than there used to be.  People are much more likely to post when they are frustrated AND there is no readily available answer.

I also don’t buy that this box needs to be so fickle, that it is an inherent MS flaw.  I can remember installing outdated things like netbui to get around early XP networking issues. Whether it is a MS issue is not relevant, as a vendor if you want to play in their space you had better figure out.  This is all about seeing a network share, not streaming, signal issues etc etc…just seeing a share.  There are literally hundreds of products on the market that do that a lot better than this box (i.e. think NAS).