Windows 11 SMB access problems

Hello,

I read through some windows smb troubleshoot guides and I didn't manage to solve this.

I have a OMV NAS and 6 different share folders on SMB. I have my user account and my families user accounts. My user account can read and write all folders. my parents account only some and my grandparents only one folder.

Now since I build the NAS it has always been troublesome to access the folders over smb because as far of my knowledge the explorer in windows is not designed to have multiple shared folders with different user access credentials. Sometimes it works perfect as intended and sometimes windows, while boot up, connects to my "public" folder which has no user credentials. Everyone can use it, and it is some kind of temporary folder for data. Then I obviously cannot connect anymore to another folder with my user credentials because windows is already connected to the public folder.

I have not saved any credentials or whatever. My windows credential manager is empty.

I also currently have no other solution to separate the folders to not have the multiple user credential mess.

Does someone know a better solution to this setup or to solve the multiple user credential, share folder error windows is throwing?

But I also cannot simply give every folder the same permissions.

It was okey until now but sometimes, especially recently, it is just annoying.

Quote from Krisbee

Would changing your "Public" folder to a "Common" share which all users have r/w permissions solve your problem? So for example, a grandparent using their account creds to connect to SMB shares would then see both their "one folder" and the "Common" share.

You mean instead of having one public folder with no credentials and the other folders with their user credentials, just adding the public folder to their user account?

Maybe this could work. I have to try this.

The explorer usually shows all folders but just they have user credentials and if they connect to the right one they only have access to their folders with that user.

I am not too much of an expert in SMB sharing, but that is what I did in the beginning to make it work.

The thing is why I cannot simply give everyone access to everything is because in a testing phase my grandpa accidentally deleted my personal backup folder 😅 He is a bit clumsy and thought he deletes some of his old pictures until I said "grandpa..you deleted my backup folder not your pictures😅"

Since then, I thought maybe it is better to have some restrictions 😅

Quote from Krisbee

Not quite. I meant what ever your "Public" shared folder is currently called, first change its SMB shared config by setting the public option to "NO" and save & apply the change. Then for that shared folder allow all your users read/write service permissions via the "Storage | Shared Folders | Permissions" screen, save & apply the change. So now when any of your users connect to SMB with their creds, they should have access to only their folder and this now common shared folder. This avoids the windows guest logon problem you had.

If you want users to see only those folders they can access, rather than all the folders being shared but not necessary ones they can access, you can add this to the extra options on the "Services | SMB/CIFS/ Settings" tab:

Ohh, okey. I will try that. Thank you very much for your help

Quote from Krisbee

Not quite. I meant what ever your "Public" shared folder is currently called, first change its SMB shared config by setting the public option to "NO" and save & apply the change. Then for that shared folder allow all your users read/write service permissions via the "Storage | Shared Folders | Permissions" screen, save & apply the change. So now when any of your users connect to SMB with their creds, they should have access to only their folder and this now common shared folder. This avoids the windows guest logon problem you had.

It worked I don't know about the long term test but for today your solution worked and windows didn't complain