Q. I’ve been fighting with this problem for about a week now off and on, and I haven’t been able to find any workable solution until today. I thought I’d share with the topic of the search I was most using to maybe help other people who run up against it.

Answer.

I have 3 existing Windows 10 PCs. All signing in with the same Microsoft account (user name is Hotmail email address). All PCs has following in Advanced sharing settings:

• HomeGroup connections
  • Use user accounts and password to connect to other computers
• Password protected sharing
  • Turn on password protected sharing

A shared folder on these computers with permission set to Everyone. All of them can access each other just fine.

Bought a new Windows 10 PC, set up with the same MIcrosoft account.

Then I added a shared folder on the new PC. Any one of the existing PC can access this new PC’s shared folder, but problem is that the new PC cannot access shared folder on any one of the old PC. Windows keeps showing “Enter network credentials” and “the username or password is incorrect” dialog box.

Researched on Internet and played with different setting, none of them helps.

Then I tried the following and it worked:

• Change all PCs to “Sign in with a local account” and use the same username/password. After that the new PC can access old PC”s shared folder.
• Now change all PCs back to “Sign in with Microsoft account”. Interestingly, now the new PC can access shared folder on other PCs.

So it looks like new PC has to share with other PCs with *local account* first before sharing with Microsoft account is allowed.