I am trying to share the root of an external drive via SMB. XBMC is able to find the network directory but asks for a username and password. I am sharing with "Everyone" without a password.
The issue goes away if I create and share a subdirectory on the same drive. Anyone familiar with this issue?
Probably the permissions that are set at the root file structure. Different than what the share settings are configured as, assuming Windows.
Obviously something is different, the question is what. Anyone else sharing their entire drives with XBMC?
I am not sure you can share a whole drive.
That user was having problems with writing or deleting files when connected remotely. This is different, because there is no access to the directory from XBMC whatsoever.
Sharing the root of a drive is possible in windows but frowned on my MS - although it is unclear to me from my reading whether this is just for c:\ or for any drive.
Anyway, create a directory in the root of the drive like d:\media and move everything into it, then share d:\media
nickr, that's what I ended up doing. But like you said, it's not clear that Microsoft "frowns" on sharing the root of an external USB drive. It just forces you to use the advanced sharing dialog instead of the regular one, but that shouldn't prevent one from setting it up correctly.
If you expect to connect to a windows share without a username and password, you need to enable the guest account in windows, which is disabled by default. It's not enough to just set the folder so 'Everyone' has access.
If xbmc still asks for a username use 'guest' and a blank password. Do NOT share your entire C drive if you have the guest account enabled though, unless you want your PC's security to be Swiss cheese...