wrote in message ...
On Sun, 22 Mar 2015 13:23:13 -0700, "Snuffy \"Hub Cap\" McKinney"
wrote:

Yes, I know it's OT. I could not find any newsgroups on Windows 7 or 8, or even any networking groups except for old OS. But any suggestions of other forums are appreciated.

An now.... on to the sob story....

Question about accessing other computers on small office network.....

I recently bought a PC with 8.1, got all the updates and then connected to the office Netgear router via wired ethernet. Not using wireless for this. No problem accessing from any computer to the other 3. Passwords were not set -- that is, when it asks for a password, we leave the pw field blank, hit 'enter' and it connected right away.

Then one day, I tried to access the older computers from the 8.1 and it would not accept a blank password. Then I entered the administrator pw and same problem. I suspect someone entered a password they thought was needed and it accept it as a new password -- but don't know. Nobody is admitting to it.

Anyway, I checked that nothing had been changed on the other 3 computers, and all connect fine to each other with no password needed as always.

So it sounds like the problem is with the new 8.1.

Sorry for long story.... I wanted to be sure all the info was out there for any helpful PC gurus.

My hunch is I should be able to reset the passwords in the 8.1 machine, but the 8.1 help menu is no help so far, and is extremely difficult for me to use. Struck out also searchiing online and at microsoft. com.

Any suggestions would be appreciated! (Suggestions like "smash the machine with a Pepsi bottle", or "run over it with your Chevy", are already on my list as defaults....)

Thanks in advance!

Snuffy

I have loaded XP on 2 W/7 machines here because of this network
password crap. I am running a hard wired network and I don't see a
significant security issue if I don't have a password. XP has no
problem talking to other XP machines, W/98 machines and my ReplayTV

Sounds good. Will do this myself.

I hear a lot of these same kind of problems for Windows 7 & 8.