Sharing Files in windows 7 without security

Question

I want to share a writable folder on my new win7 machine so that anyone who walks in the house and connects to my network can put things into that folder without having to know a password.

Things I've already done:

• Gone through the advanced file sharing dialog
• Turned off the firewall
• Turned off UAC

I don't think that windows wants me to do this, so I'm fully expecting to have to do something drastic. I understand that this is a "Bad Idea" and I don't care.

Heck, it might not even be possible...

I've been banging my head against the wall to do this, Google (and for that matter, SU) has such a plethora of un-helpful answers that I'm having a hard time sorting through them.

Answer 1

Have you looked at Sharing files with the Public folder it's the usual way of sharing publicly available data on Windows 7.

Essentially, in the 'Network and Sharing Centre' select 'Advanced Sharing Settings' make sure you enable Public Folder Sharing and also turn off Password Protected Sharing.

Answer 2

Turn your firewall back on!

Then Do as Pulse suggests.

Answer 3

If your share is listed but you can't access it: try to add read access to "Everyone" on it. (All that after doing the stuff Pulse & Moab said.)

Like: right click on the folder to be shared, Properties / Security, Edit..., add Everyone to the list if it isn't already there (Add..., type in Everyone, OK), and check if it has "Read" and "List folder contents" permissions.

This permisson problem seems to be the reason for the Mac OS X "original item for cannot be found" and smbclient "nt_status_bad_network_name" error messages.