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background

We have a single Windows 3.11 computer on our network. Users have not been able to authenticate ever since we upgraded our domain controllers to Windows Server 2008 R2 and disabled support for LANMAN hashes.

This computer only needs access to a single file location. To get around our authentication problem, we disabled all security to the network share in question. All has been working fine ever since.

problem

The path to this folder has changed, so we need to modify the drive mapping within Windows 3.11. Unfortunately, it seems that any modifications of drive mappings through the command-line interface or GUI require user authentication. Each of the following commands triggers a logon prompt, which fails.

NET USE /PERSISTENT:LIST
NET USE O: /DELETE /YES
NET USE O: \\server\win311 ? /PERSIST:YES

I know that if I could only force the drive mapping configuration it would work just fine. Unfortunately, it seems that NET USE isn't going to work for me.

I've checked through system.ini, win.ini etc. From what I've found online Windows may store these configurations in wfwsys.cfg, but this is a binary file.

Does anyone know of a way to get around NET USE prompting me for a password?

update

  • According too KB90210, drive mapping information is stored in a file named connect.dat. This file is encrypted to prevent people from modifying it by hand.
  • The requirement to log on to our domain is likely being caused from left over configurations in the system.ini or win.ini files. If the computer could be placed in peer-to-peer workgroup mode, we would probably be able to set up this drive mapping.
  • We settled on creating a file share from the Windows 3.11 box. This computer cannot access remote resources, but other computers on the network can access its shares.
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+1 for still using Win 3.11, maybe you'll need the extra points to start a bounty... – Ioan Paul Pirau Aug 26 '11 at 19:55
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Can I ask, out of curiosity more than anything else, Why do you have a Windows 3.1 machine still? This is not an answer, but, as I am guessing this isn't on a domain, have you tried other solutions such as FTP, or even Samba on a new server (can be a very small virtual server somewhere) that gets files from the 2k8 box and has it's own share with lower security, and just syncs the two :/ ... I hope you do find an answer though! – William Hilsum Aug 26 '11 at 22:58
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Since you've disabled all security to the share, you might try giving it a dummy username and password. Something like NET USE O: \\server\win311 /user:foobar dummypassword. – BillP3rd Aug 26 '11 at 22:58
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@William Thanks for the advice. Using FTP or a file server with reduced security sitting in the middle sound like they might work. I ended up getting around this problem by sharing files in the other direction. Other computers on our network are able to see folders shared from Win3.11. – Michael Steele Aug 29 '11 at 16:58
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A quick google didn't turn anything up for me, but if you can find an old copy of USE.EXE, the basic-authentication version from MS Lan Manager (I think it was version 2.x?), that might be able to do the trick for you. – StevenV Aug 29 '11 at 17:18
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closed as too localized by digitxp, surfasb, Tom Wijsman, Nifle, techie007 Sep 4 '11 at 4:14

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