Phenquestions
If you try to connect to a device, which requires the credentials of a guest instead of proper authentication, you might come across an error message - You can't access this shared folder because your organization's security policies block unauthenticated guest access. To resolve this issue, you can use the Group Policy Editor or Registry Editor.
You can't access this shared folder because your organization's security policies block unauthenticated guest access. These policies help protect your PC from unsafe or malicious devices on the network.
The main reason why such an issue occurs is the lack of SMB1 installation and deactivation of SMB2 in Windows 10 v1709 or later versions. SMB or Server Message Block is responsible for guest access, and you may need to enable it manually so that it can allow insecure guest logons to an SMB server. So you need to go through some steps to enable SMB1 manually.
You can't access this shared folder because your organization's security policies block unauthenticated guest access
This happens because Guest Access in SMB2 is disabled by default. To fix this error in Windows 10, you can follow these steps-
- Open Local Group Policy Editor
- Go to Lanman workstation
- Change the setting of Enable insecure guest logons from Not Configured to Enabled
- Save changes and try again.
Using Group Policy Editor
Open the Local Group Policy Editor. You can press Win+R, type gpedit.msc, and hit the Enter button. Alternatively, you can search for the same in the Taskbar search box.
After opening the Local Group Policy Editor, navigate to this path-
Computer configuration > Administrative Templates > Network > Lanman Workstation
On your right side, you should see a setting called Enable insecure guest logons. Double-click on it, and change the setting to Not Configured to Enabled and save your change.
Now, you should not get any problem.
Using Registry Editor
There is one more way to enable the functionality in Windows 10, and you can use the Registry Editor to get the job done.
Before tweaking any file, it is recommended to backup all Registry files. Then, open the Registry Editor on your computer. For that, press Win+R, type regedit, and press Enter. You need to select Yes in the UAC window. After that, navigate to this path-
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows
Here you need to create a key named LanmanWorkstation, only if it does not exist already. To generate the key, right-click on Windows key and select New > Key. Following that, name it as LanmanWorkstation.
Now, select this newly created key and right-click on the right side > New > DWORD (32-bit) Value and name it as AllowInsecureGuestAuth.
Set the Value data of this REG_DWORD value as 1 and save your change.
I hope that this post helps you resolve your issue.
