I have several computers on a cabled LAN. Whenever I set up a new workstation (computer Y) with Public Folder sharing turned on, and password-protected sharing turned off, and not using Homegroup sharing, I cannot access these Public folders from computer X. I am asked to enter a user name and password, none of which are accepted. However, all other computers on the LAN can access the Public folders on computer Y without providing any credentials. If I create a new local user account on computer X, and log in with the new account, then computer X can also access the Public folders on computer Y without providing credentials. Therefore this is not a hardware or cabling issue. I don't think it's an OS issue either as LAN computers run a mix of Windows 8, Windows 7 and XP. What is preventing computer X from accessing computer Y when logged in with its initial account? It is an Administrator account and also a Microsoft account.