Trouble connect to SAMBA from Windows 7

I have mixed environment Windows/Linux and before I was running my desktop on Windows XP and had no issues to connect to SAMBA server on Red Hat server.. I have my environment setup that way that all is integrated into Active Directory on MS Server 2008 so we have only 1 user name/password across the entire network.This works nice and provides extra security as only few people – members of security group have access to Linux and are able to access the resources. I have changed my desktop now to Windows 7 PRO and first problems came up … Trying to connect to SAMBA server and what I get is only a popup window with login and no way to connect … This is due of changes in Windows 7 operating system good news is that this is easy to fix and here are the steps:


  1. on Windows 7 go to START / CONTROL PANEL and click on ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS
  2. click on LOCAL SECURITY POLICY
  3. you should have a new window opened with LOCAL SECURITY POLICY
  4. on the left side click on LOCAL POLICIES / SECURITY OPTIONS
  5. move to the right side of the panel and scroll down to NETWORK SECURITY: LAN MANAGER AUTHENTICATION LEVEL
  6. As you will see no settings are now set, click there and in drop down menu select SEND LM and NTLM RESPONSES and click APPLY and OK


7. Once you have this done we will need to scroll down little a bot more and locate  NETWORK SECURITY: MINIMUM SESSION SECURITY FOR NTLMSSP
8. You have there 2 options, Please UNCHECK the box next to REQUIRE 128-bit ENCRYPTION and click APPLY and OK

Once these 2 changes are made, you should be able to connect to your SAMBA server and shares from Windows 7 desktop without problem.

Leave a Reply