back to article Microsoft warns Windows security fix may break network shares

Microsoft has overnight pushed out the latest of its ongoing preview builds for Windows 10, with this one carrying a warning that it could break your network file share connections. Redmond-watchers will know that the firm runs a Windows Insider programme where users can sign up to be guinea pigs get early access to features …

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  1. bex

    Nothing to see it will be sorted

    Unlike Apple who regularly screw with Nas products.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Nothing to see it will be sorted

      This problem has been ongoing since the anniversary release and it still isn't fixed by MS.

      1. fidodogbreath

        Re: Nothing to see it will be sorted

        This problem has been ongoing since the anniversary release and it still isn't fixed by MS.

        Pre-Anniversary Win10 killed off my NAS shares, but it was a matter of idiotic design rather than a bug. The NAS was a canary in the coal mine.

        I'd configured one of my home machines with a local user account, and mapped several NAS shares. Everything worked fine until I naively signed in to an Outlook.com account with the Calendar app. Win10 took that as a clear sign that I now wanted to share all of my logins and private data with the M$ mother ship, and -- with no warning -- converted my carefully configured local account into a Microsoft account.

        The first sign that this had occurred was that the above-mentioned shares disappeared due to an authentication error. Then, and only then, did I realize that Win10 had changed the user name, password, and account type without telling me.

        So I put it all back the way I had it. Two days later, the Anniversary update borked all of my settings again. Thus ended my dalliance with Winblows 10.

        1. ksb1972

          Re: Nothing to see it will be sorted

          In fact, network shares becoming inaccessible upon switching from a local a/c to an MS one is a bug that's been around since Win8.

          Despite battling with this for hours on various occasions, only today I happened upon a 'fix'.

          Before I continue, I must add that this is for Windows 8 & later boxes with a network share accessible to all ie without a password that previously worked but stops working when the user a/c is changed from a local one to a Microsoft one.

          Check the permissions for the share. I found 'Everyone' was missing. So I added it with the required r/w settings.

          Next, I tried to browse to the share over the LAN from another machine. I still got the dreaded password prompt. On a hunch, I typed in 'Everyone' for the username and left the password blank. It worked and continues to work just fine.

          Yay.

          But yes, some parts of Windows 10 suck. But I'm forcing myself to tame it. Not as bad as Win ME for flakiness, and the opposite of Vista for speed, but I've had to migrate to it for my main machine as the recently acquiree i7-6700K is definitely more responsive under 10 than 7.

        2. Snake Silver badge

          Re: Nothing to see it will be sorted

          @ fidodogbreath:

          If that's how Win10 defaults to handling user accounts, exactly how will MS explain this fiasco to compliance regulators? "Yes, sir, when we migrated all the customer service desktops in Account Services to Win10 it unknowingly shared all our confidential logins with Microsoft, and after the hackers got access to Outlook that's how we lost 450,000 private account profiles?"

          Oh, that won't go over well at all. :grabs the popcorn: I foresee a massive lawsuit and governmental grillings, not to mention the fact that, under these Win10 SOP, I cannot see Win10 ever making compliance approval at all.

          Microsoft, you've thrown the baby out with the bathwater on this one!

    2. Juan Inamillion

      Re: Nothing to see it will be sorted

      "Unlike Apple who regularly screw with Nas products."

      How so? Curious minds, who've had no problems, are anxious to know...

      1. CAPS LOCK

        "Unlike Apple who regularly screw with Nas products."

        Microsoft Online Reputation Manager at work. (AKA Superinfluencer - LOL)

    3. Stuart Castle Silver badge

      Re: Nothing to see it will be sorted

      "Unlike Apple who regularly screw with Nas products"

      Erm, how?

      I am genuinely interested, speaking as an experienced Apple user who owns a home network consisting of Macs and PC running various OSes, and also works in a department where I help manage a network of nearly 200 Macs and thousands of PCs, all running various OSes, and who has never had a problem with a NAS on a Mac that was caused by something Apple did.

      1. Aqua Marina

        Re: Nothing to see it will be sorted

        The Mac update springs to mind that stopped searchlight from indexing our Dlink NAS's. They have around half a million files on them, and are pretty much rendered unsearchable without 3rd party tools.

      2. JEDIDIAH
        Linux

        Re: Nothing to see it will be sorted

        Back when I still had Macs, they were terribly unreliable when it came to network shares. They would tend to stop working for no reason. It was avoidable but you had to mount things with command line tools. This included all manner of connections including Mac <-> Mac.

    4. Bob Vistakin
      Facepalm

      Re: Nothing to see it will be sorted

      'Splain that to the hospitals, fire departments, police forces, airports, government bodies etc. Or is the best advice they just wise up and avoid all this shit all together?

      1. cha0sman

        Re: Nothing to see it will be sorted

        Why would he have to explain that to the hospitals etc? You do understand that this bug was on the ßeta version that was released to the ßeta program, right?

        These insider releases(aka ßeta) are not meant for production usage...

        1. Roland6 Silver badge
          Pint

          Re: Nothing to see it will be sorted

          You do understand that this bug was on the ßeta version...

          The bug exists in Windows Vista and more recent. The ßeta just contains the first pass fix which unfortunately has an unfortunate side effect.

          Interestingly, if the MS release is to be believed, there is every reason to explain to the hospitals etc. because it is yet another reason why they should delay migrating from XP :)

        2. a_yank_lurker

          Re: Nothing to see it will be sorted

          "ßeta version" - First it is alpha not beta. Second it is likely to be released in some form as part of an update because Slurp is to lazy/stupid/cheap to have a real QA group.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Nothing to see it will be sorted

          The word Beta is spelt with a B not a ß. Otherwise you would end up saying Betaeta!

          1. Bloakey1

            Re: Nothing to see it will be sorted

            "The word Beta is spelt with a B not a ß. Otherwise you would end up saying Betaeta!"

            Which is their exact point! The update was indeed a Beta - eta .

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Nothing to see it will be sorted

              The Greek letter beta is β not to be confused with a German eszett ß.

              Note the descender and that the loop is closed.

  2. Efros

    Yeah

    and Microsoft networking works so well anyway.

  3. Dwarf

    Windows Schrodinger Edition

    Because you only find out if it will work today when you try and use the function.

    Suggest the new strap line for MS

    Microsoft Windows, What do you expect to work today ?

    Hiding things for "security reasons" is called security by obscurity - as in its not proper MAC/DAC

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Windows Schrodinger Edition

      Or maybe they are not allowing you to connect to devices when you have, for some bizarre reason, set your own network as a public one.

      1. Hans 1

        Re: Windows Schrodinger Edition

        > you have, for some bizarre reason, set your own network as a public one.

        Windows 7, 8, and 10 are very happy not only to do that for you (as in CHANGE THE BLOODY SETTTING), but also render it very difficult for you to set it back to private/enterprise.

        Who in their right mind would connect a windows box to a public network, hello ?????

        1. Alumoi Silver badge
          Coat

          Re: Windows Schrodinger Edition

          Who in their right mind would connect a windows box to a public network, hello ?????

          Every Tom, Dick and Harry?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Windows

            Re: Windows Schrodinger Edition

            > Every Tom, Dick and Harry?

            Yup. "One born every minute" as they say. Still, keeps quite a significant proportion of us in beans and bogroll.

            Speaking of imbecile, stop playing with the "superinfluencer" [ratflmao] peeps! You've got better things to do.

            1. MrDamage Silver badge

              Re: Windows Schrodinger Edition

              >"Speaking of imbecile, stop playing with the "superinfluencer" [ratflmao] peeps! You've got better things to do."

              Do we have to? The vein in his forehead is pulsating madly. If we keep going we might get it to burst.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Trollface

                Re: Windows Schrodinger Edition

                "Vein damage" MrDamage?

      2. Cpt Blue Bear

        Re: Windows Schrodinger Edition

        "...for some bizarre reason, set your own network as a public one."

        Or had it reset for you. Since last Patch Tuesday I've been been seeing problems caused by the network type being mysteriously reset from work to public on Home Prem installs (but not on Pro). Anyone else seeing this?

    2. sabroni Silver badge

      Re: Hiding things for "security reasons" is called security by obscurity

      What do you call denying access to things that you don't have permission to access? I got the impression that that's what this change is about.

      Windows gets slagged off for failing open. Looks like they're changing this to fail shut.

      1. hplasm
        Gimp

        Re: Hiding things for "security reasons" is called security by obscurity

        Windows gets slagged off for failing open. Looks like they're changing this to fail.

        FTFY.

      2. Dwarf

        Re: Hiding things for "security reasons" is called security by obscurity

        @sabroni

        Hiding something does not secure it, whereas securing something works irrespective of it being visible or not.

        If you can see it and don't have access, that's what the "Access denied" message tells you.

        As I said before, security by obscurity.

        1. sabroni Silver badge

          Re: Hiding things for "security reasons" is called security by obscurity

          So my windows machine should completely forget a share and the things I've accessed on it if it tries to connect one day and it's not allowed?

          1. Dwarf

            Re: Hiding things for "security reasons" is called security by obscurity

            @sabroni

            Are you trying to deliberately misunderstand ?

            Nobody said any of those things you reference.

    3. fidodogbreath

      Re: Windows Schrodinger Edition

      Except for the privacy settings, which are based on Heisenberg UI design principles.

  4. Rich 11

    Fast Ring?

    what Microsoft refers to as the Fast Ring

    I suffered from one of those once. I swear the transit went supersonic after a chicken phall.

    1. WatAWorld

      Re: Fast Ring?

      Why the heck would anyone install a preliminary Industry Integration Test Version of software on a production computer?

      The only fault I can see on MS's actions is not putting the text "Industry Integration Test Version" in big yellow letters on a bright read back ground on the desktop and start menu.

      I suppose they figure if people don't read the warnings before installation they won't read the warnings later. But that overlooks that one person might install the test OS on the computer and an end user might come along later completely oblivious to it being a test system.

    2. CustardGannet
      Coffee/keyboard

      @Rich11

      Thanks, that's given me a much-needed laugh after the day I've had.

  5. Sparkypatrick

    I suspect there's nothing broken to fix.

    Rather that this is intentional. There's a long-standing security flaw that allows Windows to pass authentication details to SMB shares, even over the internet. That should not happen and if the fix for this issue is to make the network your NAS is on a trusted one, then it looks like they are fixing the older flaw.

    About time.

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

      Re: I suspect there's nothing broken to fix.

      Then the least they could have done is to tell us what they were fixing and why and importantly how to reset your network type from public to private etc.

      1. cha0sman

        Re: I suspect there's nothing broken to fix.

        Why is that? This is a beta release where it is absolutely expected to have bugs like this..

        1. JEDIDIAH
          Devil

          Re: I suspect there's nothing broken to fix.

          Even a beta release should have proper release notes. Those should have been available to internal QA when testing was done against these changes.

  6. Anonymous Custard
    Headmaster

    Public networks with NAS drives?

    Microsoft offers a fix for this; if you change your network to “private” or “enterprise”, it should start working again.

    Wouldn't almost everyone have one or other of those set anyway in the kind of scenario where you'd be dealing with shared drives and NAS's? How many of those do you generally find on a public network?

  7. WatAWorld

    I have no sympathy for reporters who don't know what a test system is.

    I have no sympathy for journalists reporters who don't know what a test system is.

    Why cross out where you note that people running Insider Rings have volunteered to be guinea pigs? Volunteering to be guinea pigs is exactly what they did.

    They're running Industry Integration Test Versions of the operating system and they should darn well expect there to be bugs.

    The only people I would feel sorry for are those end users who had a sysadmin unprofessionally install a test version on an end user computer for production use, and for readers subjected to the writings of reporters who don't know what test versions are.

  8. quxinot

    Wait, so they know it's a problem, and put their patching energies into doing things that aren't fixing it?

    I miss the days when software was released as a complete thing, instead of "meh, we'll fix it in a patch, ship it". And this is down in the "meh, we'll not fix it in a patch, ship it" range.

    Eww.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      I can tell the phantom downvoter's been through these comments.

      Have an upvote.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "Phantom"?!??!?!?!!?!?!?!?!???!!!one

        He's about as phantom as a marauding dysentric elephant.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sigh, another W10 problem, just add it to the ever growing list.

    1. cha0sman

      Why would you say that? This was a problem in the ßeta release...it is not meant for production...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Holmes

        > This was a problem in the ßeta release...it is not meant for production...

        This was fixing pissing about with a problem in the αlpha release (which BS Inc. has already pushed [impressively aggressively] into general circulation).

  10. Mikel

    Give them a break

    At least this time they didn't have to hire the Samba team come in and explain to them again how their file sharing actually works, how they intended it to work (quite different), how it should work (radically different...) and how to fix what they broke.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Facepalm

      Re: Give them a break

      It might have worked properly if they had.

      :(

    2. theOtherJT Silver badge

      Re: Give them a break

      Please tell me that's a thing that actually happened and link me to somewhere I can read about it. I could use a good laugh this morning.

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