[jfried]

My current setup has a main HTPC (now running windows 10) with a bunch of hard drives in it, running Kodi, and an Android-based MINIX Box in another room.. My movie / tv databases are MySQL (running on the HTPC), and are accessible to my android box.

Prior to installing windows 10, the reliability of actually being able to access the files on my android box was terrible. (often saying file no longer exists) Hoping to solve some of these issues, and just take a step forward, I upgraded to Windows 10.

I suspect this is a Windows firewall issue, because the android box doesn't actually log in with an account on the HTPC, and therefore cannot access SMB shares.

How can I get Windows 10 to allow these shares, without restricting it to just PCs within the homegroup?

[Atreyu]

It shouldn't be a (software) firewall issue as smb is allowed by default in Win 10. I am assuming you ooted for the defaults when creating the network and opted 'make discoverable'.
To be sure, you could always temporarily turn off the firewall.
I have a similar setup and just created the shares, allowed an account acceess and added it as a source in Kodi.
Add user/pass when addimg the source and select 'remember' (or something, away from my system now).
Should be good to go. If not, report how you went about exactly and we'll try and tackle possible problems

[jfried]

It shouldn't be a (software) firewall issue as smb is allowed by default in Win 10. I am assuming you ooted for the defaults when creating the network and opted 'make discoverable'.
To be sure, you could always temporarily turn off the firewall.
I have a similar setup and just created the shares, allowed an account acceess and added it as a source in Kodi.
Add user/pass when addimg the source and select 'remember' (or something, away from my system now).
Should be good to go. If not, report how you went about exactly and we'll try and tackle possible problems

Yeah, I want to avoid the whole "create an account" thing because my sources are already added -- I am using a MySQL database hosted on the HTPC.

What I've done is created the shares (like normal), but not joined any homegroups, just made the shares read/write to everybody.

[MadScientist]

When I upgraded my server to Win 10, I suddenly couldn't access my SMB shares. It turned out to be due to the Guest account being inactivated in Win 10. (It's off by default in Win 10 as opposed to 'on' by default in Win 7). Enabling the Guest account solved the issue - worth checking in your case

[jfried]

How do I enable the guest account?

[MadScientist]

http://www.intowindows.com/3-ways-to-ena...indows-10/

[jfried]

Tried method 2 (as method 1 was not available), still not working.

[sveni_lee]

You could try as follow:

Open the console as Administrator and enter the two commands...

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

sc.exe config mrxsmb20 start= disabled

and reboot