Networked Drives / Shares inaccessible after Windows 11 update?

[Space_Munkey]

Morning All!

 

So this is in relation to our ExamWritePad installation and setup but have been experiencing it across the wider W11 estate and pretty sure it's to do with some W11 security changes.

 

Essentially our EWP Json files and backups are located in a hidden folder on a shared drive all student accounts can read (I'd like to do it differently at some point but this is how it was setup initially and we've just ran with it ever since).

 

Since W11 we have noticed that network shares are no longer just connecting - quite the opposite.

 

We have InVentry which is used by some admin staff and we have had to apply the following in order to get them to be able to read / connect to the inventry share after a rebuild:

 

• Browse to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanWorkstation\Parameters
• Right click on empty space. New>DWORD (32Bit) Value
• Call it AllowInsecureGuestAuth
• Double click on it and set Value Data to 1

 

And then from an elevated terminal

set-smbclientconfiguration -requiresecuritysignature $false

 

This gets it all working, but I'm dubious about the security of this - it's only been roughly 8 devices that I've had to do this one, so I want to make sure that I'm on the right track and whether it's safe to do for student devices accessing our shared network drive.

 

Any info on other methods or discussion welcome!

Edited December 2, 2025 by Space_Munkey
Ctrl+v posted the thread early for some reason!

[psydii]

suspect you're mixing and matching domain and non domain credentials?

[Space_Munkey]

I think after writing it out, reading your comment and a bit of thinking, I realise this may actually be two completely seperate issues.

 

Your comment makes sense for inventry as it is it's own unit and not actually part of our domain, but the EWP issue may just be misconfigured NTFS permissions which worked somehow for W10 but now doesn't for W11?

 

IDK - going to have a bit more of a play and see if anything makes more sense!

 

 

[3s-gtech]

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/file-server/enable-insecure-guest-logons-smb2-and-smb3?tabs=group-policy

 

What's the share hosted on?