Windows Network

Contents 1 Saved Credentials aka Stored User Names and Passwords 2 Transferring Files on Local Network 3 Mounting SMB Shares on Linux 4 Reconnecting to a Share 4.1 View Connections 4.2 Disconnecting 5 Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) and Network Shares 6 References

Saved Credentials aka Stored User Names and Passwords

When using

net use x: //server/share /savecred

or ticking the 'Remember my password' box on the logon dialog for network drives, you may wonder where the information is stored and in what form.

To view the stored passwords, use

control keymgr.dll

From here you can delete them. The passwords are actually stored in one of these directories

\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Microsoft\Credentials
\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Credentials

Please note that Windows will try connecting with your Windows logon password (Autologon) and will try to automatically reconnect even if you didn't store the password anywhere. Very strange behaviour.

Please note that the Autologon password and any other passwords are easily retrieved with Nirsoft Network Password Recovery. So your password isn't safe on a machine that is logged on.

Transferring Files on Local Network

Do not expect Windows SMB Network to work without problems for this purpose. I recommend using HFS ~ Http File Server for this purpose. It is as easy as shared folders, and works without problems.

Mounting SMB Shares on Linux

$ smbmount //host/share /mnt/name

Reconnecting to a Share

If you are connected to a share as a user with limited access and want to reconnect, it is not enough to enter a new username and password. You may have to disconnect the share.

View Connections

You can investigate whether a windows machine is connected to a network share by one of these methods:

Windows machine:

C:\>net use

Samba machine:

$ smbstatus -s

Disconnecting

C:\>net use /delete \\sharename

... and then reconnect by browsing to the share and entering the new username and password

Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) and Network Shares

You can browse to the files of any network share (given the proper permissions), if contact to the host has already been established, for instance by 'running' the host by typing WinKey+r and entering

\\hostname

The URL for network shares has the format:

file://///hostname/share    <- I guess the 5 slashes are:
                                 2 for the file protocol,
                                 1 for the root of the Windows network neighbourhood, and
                                 2 for the host

A local URL looks like this:

file:///drive:/directory

or:

file:///drive|/directory

An example:

file:///c:/windows

References

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Url