I've noticed this in the past week or so. Up until then, my HomeGroup has been working fine. I have 2 Windows 7 PC's connected via HomeGroup, one running Ultimate x64, the other running Home Premium x64. The Home Premium computer is now asked for a "Network Password" when accessing the Ultimate computer's shared folders/libraries. This was not an issue prior to last week. Up until a week ago, I could simply click on my HomeGroup from the Home Premium computer, then click the Ultimate computer name as it appears within the HomeGroup, and finally click one of the shared folders/libraries and it would open the folder/library. Settings are, Advanced Network and Sharing Options are all set to default on both including Let Windows Manage HomeGroup Connections. Network location is set to home on each. HomeGroup password is the same on each. Credential Manager shows [Computer Name]\HomeGroupUser$, correct password, and the persistence is Local Machine on each. Both computers are connected wirelessly using 802.11g via a Linksys WRT400N router, each using a dynamic (DHCP) IP address. Consequently, I can access the Home Premium's shared folders/libraries from the Ultimate computer using HomeGroup without being prompted for a "Network Password". I can access the internet from each computer without any issues. I have tried leaving the HomeGroup on each computer, recreated the HomeGroup on each, deleted the IDStore.sst files on each, all to no avail. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks in advance. ZZaR

imho this should be marked as "Answer" renaming/rebooting twice is idiocrazy and neither a fix nor a answer.... Another fix "might be?" for lazy ppl that dont want to mess with pw manager: The computer with the problems: Leave the Homegroup u will be immediately promted on the same window (guess at least one of the other comps has to run / as the remaining computers still have the PW etc.) now rejoin - problem should be fixed but the real answer is defenatly from khomeshwarFarakade! But I've tried his solution and it didn't help.

5 hours of frustrating, blood-pressure elevating stupidity from Microsoft. Utterly unforgivable that such a simple connection between 3 Win 7 machines was so messed up. Good Riddance is right, it worked, it worked. No idea why, but it did. Stupid, stupid Microsoft. How can a company fail to address such a known issue? Can't wait to tell my Mac pals about this one.

This is not the answer - that's just instructions on how to setup homegroup

Another way I found to this issue is when prompted for the network username and password was to enter the name of the computer your on then your homegroup password. don't know why it worked but it did. I did it to access one computer as a test and forgot to hit the remember me check box, so i typed it in again for the other computer and it let me in to access the files. I just upgraded a number of computers to Windows 8 and ran into the same issues. I can go from Computer A to Computer B just fine, but going the other way pops up the username/password prompt. Specifically, the username/password prompt complains with the message: "The system cannot contact a domain controller to service the authentication request. Please try again later." After trying all sorts of things (including the name switching), I stumbled on your post but logged in slightly differently (don't know if other variants would also work). Since my problem was connecting to Computer A from Computer B, I entered Computer A's computer name as the "username", and entered the homegroup password as the password. Voila, everything suddenly worked. I guess homegroups secretly uses some domain-based secret sauce behind the scenes? In hindsight, I could've setup everything faster just using the traditional workgroups model. I hope the homegroups feature gets some attention and fixes so it's not so flaky in the future. EDIT: Actually, the only thing it fixed was getting rid of the logon. The folder permissions are still completely screwed up. It only worked initially because some of my folders had sharing permissions set up for "Everyone". In the end, I had to grant "Everyone" the same permissions as "Homegroups" on every folder I share. In other words, Homegroups is extra work compared to just plain old Workgroup sharing.

HomeGroup asking for "Network Password" when accessing HomeGroup Computers

Anonymous

I've noticed this in the past week or so. Up until then, my HomeGroup has been working fine.

I have 2 Windows 7 PC's connected via HomeGroup, one running Ultimate x64, the other running Home Premium x64. The Home Premium computer is now asked for a "Network Password" when accessing the Ultimate computer's shared folders/libraries. This was not an issue prior to last week. Up until a week ago, I could simply click on my HomeGroup from the Home Premium computer, then click the Ultimate computer name as it appears within the HomeGroup, and finally click one of the shared folders/libraries and it would open the folder/library.

Settings are,

Advanced Network and Sharing Options are all set to default on both including Let Windows Manage HomeGroup Connections.
Network location is set to home on each.
HomeGroup password is the same on each.
Credential Manager shows [Computer Name]\HomeGroupUser$, correct password, and the persistence is Local Machine on each.
Both computers are connected wirelessly using 802.11g via a Linksys WRT400N router, each using a dynamic (DHCP) IP address.

Consequently, I can access the Home Premium's shared folders/libraries from the Ultimate computer using HomeGroup without being prompted for a "Network Password". I can access the internet from each computer without any issues.

I have tried leaving the HomeGroup on each computer, recreated the HomeGroup on each, deleted the IDStore.sst files on each, all to no avail. Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

ZZaR

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

ZZaR

Well, I seem to have possibly stumbled upon something that may have resolved my issue, at least for the time being. This morning, I renamed my Home Premium computer's full name by removing 1 character from the existing name. Of course, I was prompted to reboot for the changes to take effect. I rebooted and then on the next subsequent logon, I renamed my Home Premium computer's full name back to what it was originally. Again, I was prompted to reboot for the changes to take effect. After rebooting, I clicked on my HomeGroup and from there I clicked on my Ultimate computer that appears within my HomeGroup. To my surprise, the shared library icons were restored to their default appearance; documents, music, pictures, and video. I clicked on each of the four libraries and each opened with full access (default read only) to the contents of each library. I was not prompted for a "Network Password" this time!

If renaming the full computer name of my Home Premium computer twice, once to a new name and then back to the original name did somehow correct the issue, would this mean that the share using the full computer name had somehow become corrupt in the preceding week? Could this be the reason for the "Network Password" prompt? At any rate, my HomeGroup is once again functioning correctly between both my Ultimate and Home Premium computers. Knock on wood.

ZZaR

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42 additional answers

Anonymous

2013-06-02T19:37:54+00:00

imho this should be marked as "Answer"

renaming/rebooting twice is idiocrazy and neither a fix nor a answer....

Another fix "might be?" for lazy ppl that dont want to mess with pw manager:

The computer with the problems: Leave the Homegroup u will be immediately promted on the same window (guess at least one of the other comps has to run / as the remaining computers still have the PW etc.) now rejoin - problem should be fixed

but the real answer is defenatly from khomeshwarFarakade!

But I've tried his solution and it didn't help.
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Anonymous

2013-06-02T19:19:47+00:00

5 hours of frustrating, blood-pressure elevating stupidity from Microsoft. Utterly unforgivable that such a simple connection between 3 Win 7 machines was so messed up. Good Riddance is right, it worked, it worked. No idea why, but it did. Stupid, stupid Microsoft. How can a company fail to address such a known issue? Can't wait to tell my Mac pals about this one.
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Anonymous

2013-05-11T00:10:50+00:00

This is not the answer - that's just instructions on how to setup homegroup
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Anonymous

2013-02-01T17:29:03+00:00

Another way I found to this issue is when prompted for the network username and password was to enter the name of the computer your on then your homegroup password. don't know why it worked but it did. I did it to access one computer as a test and forgot to hit the remember me check box, so i typed it in again for the other computer and it let me in to access the files.

I just upgraded a number of computers to Windows 8 and ran into the same issues. I can go from Computer A to Computer B just fine, but going the other way pops up the username/password prompt. Specifically, the username/password prompt complains with the message: "The system cannot contact a domain controller to service the authentication request. Please try again later."

After trying all sorts of things (including the name switching), I stumbled on your post but logged in slightly differently (don't know if other variants would also work). Since my problem was connecting to Computer A from Computer B, I entered Computer A's computer name as the "username", and entered the homegroup password as the password. Voila, everything suddenly worked. I guess homegroups secretly uses some domain-based secret sauce behind the scenes?

In hindsight, I could've setup everything faster just using the traditional workgroups model. I hope the homegroups feature gets some attention and fixes so it's not so flaky in the future.

EDIT: Actually, the only thing it fixed was getting rid of the logon. The folder permissions are still completely screwed up. It only worked initially because some of my folders had sharing permissions set up for "Everyone". In the end, I had to grant "Everyone" the same permissions as "Homegroups" on every folder I share. In other words, Homegroups is extra work compared to just plain old Workgroup sharing.
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