I recently set up an Ubuntu Samba Server on my LAN but the Windows 10 clients couldn’t access it. My Linux clients had no problem, so I knew the server was good.

After a bit of googling I learnt that Windows 10 uses a newer Samba protocol, the trick is to make it not do that.

Here are the instructions that worked for me:

1. Open the PowerShell with admin authority and type:

Set-ItemProperty -Path “HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters” SMB2 -Type DWORD -Value 0 -Force

2. Open the command line window with admin authority and type:

sc.exe config lanmanworkstation depend= bowser/mrxsmb10/nsi

sc.exe config mrxsmb20 start= disabled

3. Go to “Control Panel -> Programs”

Select “Turn Windows features on or off”
There you will find “SMB 1.0/CIFS File Sharing Support”. Enable it!

Reboot your PC, hopefully you can now discover your drive.

Update:

Recently I’ve had to do one more step to get this working, and that’s to enable insecure guest logons in the Local Group Policy Editor.

To start, open a Run window (Win + R) and type gpedit.msc

When the Local Group Policy Editor opens, navigate to these settings:

Computer Configuration -> Administration Templates -> Network -> Lanman Workstation

Now select the Enable insecure guest logins setting, and set it to enabled.

That’s it, you should be able to access your samba share now.

For more information on this last step, see here.

Finally:

I’ve had to repeat these steps after every significant Windows update, these settings seem to get reset by Microsoft. Smaller updates are not a problem.