I'll try to get to the point.
Using Run from the start menu to an un-authenticated machine: \\hostname\share
gives me the Windows prompt for password, good.
Running %systemroot%\explorer.exe "\\hostname\share"
against the same un-authenticated machines hangs for a moment, then opens up my local My Documents, no prompts for password, bad.
Running %systemroot%\explorer.exe "\\server\share"
against a domain server, opens an explorer window to the share, good.
How can I get the Windows password dialog to present itself when attempting to connect to an un-authenticated machine? Im aware of running net use \\server\share
and inputting the username and password when prompted inside the command window, but that's not what I want. We are open to basic commands or a vbs script.
The reason for this is that a lot of our clients run in peer to peer networks, and their laptops that run our software are not able to authenticate with a server until they provide a username and password, we are trying to avoid the command window, and provide a familiar Windows password dialog. We use SQL merge replication, and aside from sync, which uses SQL auth, they need to be able to access a share which contains the initial snapshot at installation time.