Fix: Can’t Access Network Shared Drive After Windows 10 Anniversary Update

This issue has been driving us crazy for weeks. All of our test machines connect to shared drives on central terminal (which has Windows 10 installed). As tests are completed, we launch a Windows Explorer tab (file explorer) and navigate to \\COMPUTER-NAME\data to drop our results into the system. This setup is used for rapid file sharing across gigabit internal lines, rather than going through cumbersome USB keys or bloating our NAS with small test files.

Unfortunately, updating our primary test benches to Windows 10 Anniversary Edition broke this functionality. We’d normally enter \\COMPUTER-NAME\data to access the shared drive over the network, but that started returning an “incorrect username or password” error (despite using the correct username and password) after said Win10 update. The issue was worked around for a few weeks, but it finally became annoying enough to require some quick research.

We figured it’d be worth posting the solution, and ours was pretty simple: Let’s pretend our username is “UserB” and the host machine (within which the shared drives reside)  is named “ComputerA.” When entering the username and password for the shared user account, we used to just enter:

Old Username Format

Windows Explorer address bar: \\ComputerA\
Username: UserB
Password: SomePassword

It’d work perfectly, and still does on Windows 7, 8, and 10 non-AE.

With Anniversary Edition – at least, with our install – we now have to enter the credentials as follows:

New Username Format (Windows 10 - Anniversary)

Windows Explorer address bar: \\ComputerA\
Username: ComputerA\UserB
Password: SomePassword

And it worked perfectly. Enter the computer name prior to the account name, and separate the two with a slash (\). Do not enter the preceding \\ before the computer name in the “Username” box.

This has resolved our problems. It might not fix everyone’s issue with shared drive access on Windows 10 or Anniversary Update, but hopefully it’ll help someone.

This stupid issue drove me crazy for weeks.

- Steve “Lelldorianx” Burke