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I used to have a network share on an external Samba server named mysmb. The network share itself was accessed via \\mysmb\myshare.

I connected to it from my new Windows 8.1 laptop, copied its content to a local folder (same name), then shared it. So far so good. I can access it from my laptop the old SMB way, using 127.0.0.1\myshare.

I now want to access this local share the old way: \\mysmb\myshare.

For that, I changed c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts to point mysmb to 127.0.0.1 by adding the line:

127.0.0.1   mysmb

I can now ping mysmb fine, returning pings from the very same laptop (i.e. not that Samba server, as it has been turned off).

But if I try to access mysmb as a share, i.e. \\mysmb\myshare, "Windows Security" keeps prompting me for "Enter network credentials".

Which tells me that my laptop's Windows 8.1 somehow remembers the old IP address of the mysmb computer name.

I tried deleting all cached IPs using arp -a -d then rebooting, but that didn't help.

In Windows 2000/XP there used to be a view called My Network Places that memorized & listed all previously used connections. If I delete one, this would prevent the "Duplicate Name Exists" Error.

Where does Windows 8.1 store this kind of caching and how can I make it forget that history?

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  • I think I know what you are trying to do but unfortunately this won't work with NETBIOS crap. In TCP/IP (etc/hosts) you can give multiple names to the same IP address and this would work flawlessly. NETBIOS, however only allows one computer name (that's the name you see listed in the WORKGROUP). If it's different that the mysmb you are trying to access, you're SOL.
    – Bill The Ape
    Commented Feb 8, 2015 at 19:24
  • Oh wait a minute... perhaps this article can help you?
    – Bill The Ape
    Commented Feb 8, 2015 at 19:27

1 Answer 1

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Flush your dns cache. 

Ipconfig /flushdns

If your computer is contacting the wrong address, flushing dns should do the trick.

Doing the arp command removes cached Mac addresses rather than dns entries, which is why I think this would work while the previous did not.

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