I saw this in a thread over at MSFN. I can't think of a single case where any of us, except maybe Johnrw, will realistically run into this, but I found it interesting enough, and obscure enough, that I thought it just might be useful to post here, just in case. Between the advice in the four posts below, I would think you should be able to get your network working. ================================================================================ I was tearing my hair out trying to get Windows 9x/ME clients (VMs and one real machine) to connect to my file shares served by Windows 7. I'd previously gotten it to work just fine served by Windows XP, so I set it up identically under Windows 7, to be greeted by it not working. Absolutely nothing I found Googling about this problem led me to a solution. I tried: Navigating directly to the shares by path Setting LmCompatibilityLevel and NoLmHash on the server side Setting LMCompatibility on the client side Installing dsclient9x.msi on the client Enabling NetBIOS on the server side Changing the network type from Public to Home on the server side Setting the Full Name of the account to be equal to its Name instead of being blank Actually logging in locally on the server side to an account meant only for file-sharing use Rebooting both the server and client after changing all of the above settings and more So if anyone coming across this thread still hasn't got this to work, here's the last thing I finally figured out: Account passwords are case-sensitive in Windows Vista and above, but are case-insensitive on Windows 9x/ME. Apparently the password is converted to lowercase by the 9x/ME client when sent over the network, because I had to change my mixed-case passwords to lowercase on the server side. With that done, it worked! As it turned out, I only needed to do two things differently under Windows 7 than I had under XP: Set HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa\LmCompatibilityLevel to a DWORD value of 1 on the server side (which is the same as going to Control Panel → Administrative Tools → Local Security Policy → Local Policies → Security Options, and setting "Network security: LAN Manager authentication level" to "Send LM & NTLM - use NTLMv2 session security if negotiated"). (Attempts to get the client to use NTLMv2 failed.) Note that a reboot is notneeded after changing this setting. Use lowercase passwords on the server side. I reverted all the other changes I'd made, because none of them had any effect. Which is a shame, because it would've been nice to get the Windows 9x/ME clients to use NTLMv2, but maybe that only works for domains, and not workgroups? Oh, and I do have to navigate directly to the shares, but I don't mind that at all; I map them to drive letters anyway. ========================= And further up the same page there are these three posts: ========================= DSCLIENT.EXE Active Directory Client Extension is needed if not using SP but Client for Microsoft Networks is not needed for this procedure. You may use Client for Microsoft Networks if it suits you. To each their own 1. You want to have an Administrator account with a Password on the Win 7 computer. 2. You want to make sure all sharing options are enabled. Depending on what you are sharing, use your own discretion. Right-click the folder you want to share. Click Properties --> Sharing --> Advanced Sharing. Put a check mark on Share this folder. Click Permissions and set to your likings. Click Apply --> OK ---> Apply --> OK ---> Close. 3. From the run box type SECPOL.MSC. In the Local Security Policy --> Security Options --> Network security: Lan Manager authentication level --> set to whatever security level suits you. There is no need to change registry values because once you change the security in Network security: Lan Manager authentication level, it is automatically changed in the registry. 4. On a Win98 machine, create a new user account with the same user name and password that is created on the Win 7 Administrator account. The Primary Network Logon does not matter. 5. Add this registry key, because without it, you will not be able to connect to Win 7. Reboot! REGEDIT4[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\LSA]"LMCompatibility"=dword:00000003; 6. Log-in to the new account you just created. 7. Network Neighborhood is not an option. In Windows Explorer, navigate to the desired shared folder on the Win 7 machine. Example: \\Win 7 Computer name\The folder you to access \\JohnDoe\Music ============================ and ============================ Huh! LmCompatibilityLevel LMCompatibility A little "combo" info and here. Maybe the method I used is the difference. I didn't do any of the other steps you provided, only what I posted, AFAICR. 98SE on VPC VM <-> Win7 Home Premium via the NIC's<->Router (DSCLIENT, as you said, is for accessing AD Domains) Oh well, whichever flies, proving it can be done, the main thing being you have to (generally) have matching setups (User+Pwd, Workgroup, TCP/IP, etc.) on both ends. Win9x<->Vista/Win7/Win8(?)/(+Server varieties) ======================= and ======================= One tip I accidentally stumbled upon and that turned out to be the most important of them all: Win9x will not open a Win7 network computer directly; instead, one must know the exact names of the shares and access them directly. For example, if the Win7 computer named TEST7 has a shared folder under the name of MyShare, then you'll have to type \\TEST7\MyShare in your file manager and it will open it. I've wasted a lot of time searching around and trying all the tips I could find, until I found the above; as soon as I followed it, the shares became available. As a mention, I'm only using Total Commander as file manager and as such, I locked a few Win7 shared tabs in one pane so they could be accessed when needed without having to type the share path again. I don't think it's been mentioned here but the Win9x machine(s) should have Active Directory Client (DSClient) installed.
Good to know. I guess? I have been thinking of building a Win95Box (DOSBox-Windows95 hybrid) similar to Glenn's WinBox3.1
