USB Drive on Asus RT N66U Router seen/mapped on Windows 7 but not Windows 8.1

[FBlain]

I know I'm not alone with this issue and have tried pretty much everything I've seen so I'm looking for fresh ideas.

My situation:

I have a Windows 7 desktop (custom built) and a Toshiba Windows 8.1 laptop. Both are connected to the router wirelessly. Both are on the same Homegroup. Both have the Windows Firewall and both have Nod32 Antivirus. Everything is up to date.

I attached an External Hard Drive (WD Elements 1TB, NTFS) to the router and turned Samba on. I was able to map it on the Windows 7 computer but regardless of what I do, I cannot see it on the Windows 8.1 machine. I've tried about 6-7 fixes I've seen on the web, including (but not limited to) trying to map the address directly as well as turning off both the antivirus and firewall and nada, can't see/map it. I have no idea what could be wrong with it but since I see it fine on the Windows 7 machine, I kinda doubt it's a router issue.

Anyone have any idea?

 

[sfx2000]

Are all three part of the same Workgroup (as defined on the Samba server)?

Also, on the 8.1 box, is it a local account, or are you logging in as <username>@outlook.com or something similar?

 

[stevech]

replace Win 8.1 with Win 7.

 

[FBlain]

Are all three part of the same Workgroup (as defined on the Samba server)?

Also, on the 8.1 box, is it a local account, or are you logging in as <username>@outlook.com or something similar?

All three on the same workgroup/homegroup and yes it is a local account.

 

[FBlain]

replace Win 8.1 with Win 7.

Was hoping to be able to avoid doing this.

 

[htismaqe]

It's probable the router is using an older NTLM authentication mechanism. Most consumer NAS and router NAS samba implementations are fairly old.

You might find these links to be helpful.

http://www.eightforums.com/network-sharing/18134-windows-8-pc-cant-see-network-drive.html
http://www.eightforums.com/network-...ccess-w8-w8-computer-cant-see-w2k-server.html

 

[FBlain]

It's probable the router is using an older NTLM authentication mechanism. Most consumer NAS and router NAS samba implementations are fairly old.

You might find these links to be helpful.

http://www.eightforums.com/network-sharing/18134-windows-8-pc-cant-see-network-drive.html
http://www.eightforums.com/network-...ccess-w8-w8-computer-cant-see-w2k-server.html

Thanks but tried both of these without success. Been looking for a while.

 

[sfx2000]

All three on the same workgroup/homegroup and yes it is a local account.

Keep in mind that Workgroups and Homegroups are completely different items

- In Windows Explorer, if you type \\192.168.0.1 (or whatever the IP of the router is), what happens?

- is there a way you can review the SMB logs on the router?

Some other things to check

On the windows 8.1 box, have you checked the following;

1.) Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Local Security Policy.

2.) Enable - Microsoft Network Client: send unencrypted password to third party SMB servers.

3.) When asked for credentials in user name type: servername\userame.Do not just type the username only.

Also, you might check out the Asus Subforums, there are quite a few very knowledgeable people that are more familiar with this router model, and of course, there's also the RMerlin builds to consider.

 

[stevech]

Was hoping to be able to avoid doing this.

right. But you are at speed bump #1 with win 8.1.
#2, 3, 4, 5 lie ahead.

 

[sfx2000]

right. But you are at speed bump #1 with win 8.1.
#2, 3, 4, 5 lie ahead.

Not helpful...

Yeah, Win8.x is a pain compared to Win7/XP, but it brings some good stuff to the party - I hate on the Metro/NewWhatever UI just the same, but MSFT did toss out a lot of old/bad stuff...

 

[stevech]

I tried to like win 8.1.
Not.

 

[sfx2000]

I tried to like win 8.1.
Not.

Agreed - but that doesn't help answer the OP's question...

 

[htismaqe]

I've been running Windows 10 in VM for a few months and it's not much better.

I know this doesn't seem to help answer the OP's question, but wait, there's more!

@FBlain,

You might try installing Virtualbox or something similar on your Windows 8 machine and then loading another OS, specifically Windows 10, and seeing if either can see the network drive. If it works, you could always live with the issue until July 29th when Windows 10 is released. All current Windows 7 and 8 licenses are eligible for a free upgrade.

I'm fresh out of ideas.

 

[sfx2000]

Don't feel bad, at the end of the day, there's only so much that can be done - the N66U is an older device, and a pretty old version of Samba, and MSFT has been doing quite a bit of updates on their SMB stack to improve throughput and security.

More recent versions of Samba have taken these changes into account...

 

[L&LD]

I would recommend to not use Windows homegroup and rather use user accounts and passwords. I would also recommend to uninstall NOD32 to test your networking with too.

To change this setting, go to Network and Sharing Center, Advanced sharing settings, Private and change the HomeGroup connections options.

While Windows 8 and higher has it's quirks, it is by far the superior OS vs. the six year old Windows 7. While I too have preferences that MS did not account for, it took less than a week to get used to doing things the new way and reap the benefits the new OS offers. I suspect Windows 10 will be much the same. But barring anything that would make it a real show stopper, I am sure that I will quickly adapt to it and benefit from the improvements over Windows 8 (which is itself now three years old).

One thing I know for sure; I will never allow myself to be married to one OS like some of my customers did with Windows XP. The resistance to change was so great from some of the employees and even the owners, I'm surprised that they are still in business today (running Windows 8.1).

The OS is not the goal. It is only the means. And the latest OS's are better capable to handle the performance and capabilities of the latest hardware much better than older / outdated versions can. This is what makes them worth putting up with a few niggles in terms of look and feel (and even then, after a few days, even those niggles are forgotten).

 

[htismaqe]

Don't feel bad, at the end of the day, there's only so much that can be done - the N66U is an older device, and a pretty old version of Samba, and MSFT has been doing quite a bit of updates on their SMB stack to improve throughput and security.

More recent versions of Samba have taken these changes into account...

Most of the consumer NAS devices and router/NAS have the same issue. For example, QNAP just implemented SMB v2 (v2.1 now) support in QTS 4.1 and even then, it's only supported on the higher-end devices. My TS-112P still only support SMB v1.

 

[htismaqe]

While Windows 8 and higher has it's quirks, it is by far the superior OS vs. the six year old Windows 7. While I too have preferences that MS did not account for, it took less than a week to get used to doing things the new way and reap the benefits the new OS offers. I suspect Windows 10 will be much the same. But barring anything that would make it a real show stopper, I am sure that I will quickly adapt to it and benefit from the improvements over Windows 8 (which is itself now three years old).

In terms of the OP, there's no improvements to take advantage of, even over Windows XP, let alone Windows 7. It's highly likely his router is running a much older Samba stack that only supports SBM v1. In this case (and to be clear, I'm speaking specifically only about this case) all Windows 8 is doing is making it difficult for him.

One thing I know for sure; I will never allow myself to be married to one OS like some of my customers did with Windows XP. The resistance to change was so great from some of the employees and even the owners, I'm surprised that they are still in business today (running Windows 8.1).

I don't have any customers running Windows 8/8.1 yet (in fairness, all of my customers have thousands if not 10's of thousands of employees). In fact, I know of some very large enterprises that are still heavily dependent on Windows XP, to the tune of over 60% of their desktops. It's not just resistance to change, it's that upgrading an operating system is a capital-intensive task and there's literally thousands of work streams necessary to make sure everything works. In some cases, business critical applications get broken by OS upgrades and that's not merely trivial or inconvenient. For most of my customers, upgrading the user OS enterprise-wide is a 3-to-5-year project.

The OS is not the goal. It is only the means.

In order to be an effective means, particularly when it comes to productivity, simplicity and efficiency would almost always be desirable. Windows 10 is neither of those things. For example, some configuration items can only be found in the new GUI "settings" applet. Others can only be found in the Windows XP/Vista/7 style "Control Panel". It's not about getting used to anything - I've been using Windows 10 for months and I know where everything is, as well as knowing how to implement some of the desirable tweaks I've carried over from previous versions of Windows. It's that it literally takes longer to perform certain routine tasks on Windows 10 than it did on Windows 7, and Windows 7 was already not the most productive OS in the world.

 

[L&LD]

In terms of the OP, there's no improvements to take advantage of, even over Windows XP, let alone Windows 7. It's highly likely his router is running a much older Samba stack that only supports SBM v1. In this case (and to be clear, I'm speaking specifically only about this case) all Windows 8 is doing is making it difficult for him.



I don't have any customers running Windows 8/8.1 yet (in fairness, all of my customers have thousands if not 10's of thousands of employees). In fact, I know of some very large enterprises that are still heavily dependent on Windows XP, to the tune of over 60% of their desktops. It's not just resistance to change, it's that upgrading an operating system is a capital-intensive task and there's literally thousands of work streams necessary to make sure everything works. In some cases, business critical applications get broken by OS upgrades and that's not merely trivial or inconvenient. For most of my customers, upgrading the user OS enterprise-wide is a 3-to-5-year project.



In order to be an effective means, particularly when it comes to productivity, simplicity and efficiency would almost always be desirable. Windows 10 is neither of those things. For example, some configuration items can only be found in the new GUI "settings" applet. Others can only be found in the Windows XP/Vista/7 style "Control Panel". It's not about getting used to anything - I've been using Windows 10 for months and I know where everything is, as well as knowing how to implement some of the desirable tweaks I've carried over from previous versions of Windows. It's that it literally takes longer to perform certain routine tasks on Windows 10 than it did on Windows 7, and Windows 7 was already not the most productive OS in the world.

While I appreciate your viewpoint and concede to your experience (over mine), I guess we'll agree to disagree on what constitutes a better OS.

The fact that it takes up to half a decade to move to a new OS is proof (to me) that most of your customers are failing to see the advantages a new OS brings. Especially if they're still running Windows XP as seems to be indicated.

While many variables come into play, I do have one customer that built a new XP based machine for the office and a short time later bought a new computer with Windows 8.0 too. While the cussing and cursing was at an all time high with the Windows 8 system initially, in the end, it has proven to be the most stable and least troublesome system he ever had. Same brand, same (consumer) level of hardware. But a system that did not need multiple reboots during the day. A system that would not freeze and any issues that came up (even with certain banking websites) were all resolved in due time.

Today, that same customers office is 100% Windows 8.1 based and all the systems are reserved for the free Windows 10 upgrade. This customer told me employee efficiency is higher simply because they don't have the excuse that 'the system is down' anymore. Well worth his moving everyone (about 40 employees) to a new OS and in some departments, new software too for their core jobs. It took a few months (not years) but show-stopping computer concerns are few and far between (especially after their resident IT guy and gal got the hang of the new OS's).

 

[sfx2000]

Imagine me saying this - we're going way off the range here

It's good discussion, but it's not helping the OP's question/problem



sfx

 

[htismaqe]

The fact that it takes up to half a decade to move to a new OS is proof (to me) that most of your customers are failing to see the advantages a new OS brings. Especially if they're still running Windows XP as seems to be indicated.

It's not a matter of not seeing the advantages. Actually in most cases, they see many of the advantages but it simply costs too much, takes too long, and breaks too many things. Not only is the process itself costly and productivity-impacting, the months following are too. Remember, we're not talking about you, or me, or a half dozen tech-heads. We're talking about 100,000 employees of all different skill levels, some of which took several years to get used to XP and are still struggling with Windows 7. Upgrading from XP to 7, for my company, was a nearly $10M project with soft costs probably reaching 10x that (we'll never truly be able to quantify the productivity lost, or gained, from moving to a new OS).

That's why so many large enterprises are looking very closely at VDI.

Imagine me saying this - we're going way off the range here

It's good discussion, but it's not helping the OP's question/problem



sfx

Par for the course around here, especially when I'm involved!