How to login to network share when Microsoft Account is tied to windows login?

I have windows 8.1 and its tied to my Microsoft login. I only vaguely remember setting this option up during the installation of windows. When I try to use these credentials to connect to my network share I cannot login.

E.G. \\computerName\c$

It will not accept my credentials. When I run whoami at the command line I see a different account. I don't recall ever setting up this other account.

whoami = domain\me (password unknown if I ever even set one up...)
Windows Login = me@email.com (password known, does not work with RDP)

What do I need to do in order to login to the network share?

windows-8.1

P.Brian.Mackey

Posted 2014-04-11T01:20:36.837

Reputation: 1 530

Is the "domain" listed your computer name? Have the admin shares been enabled? What does the admin share permissions/access have to do with you logging onto remote desktop? – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2014-04-11T02:43:15.653

@techie007 Yes. Yes. Type-o, updated. – P.Brian.Mackey – 2014-04-11T12:35:21.030

have you tried just the user part of your email and your password? This is what works for RDP at least. i.e. I log onto Win using my live account myuser@domain.co.uk and password and when I RDP to that machine I use myuser and password to log in... myuser@domain.co.uk is configured as an administrator – Shevek – 2014-04-11T13:35:15.250

1@Shevek I just tried. Still no go. – P.Brian.Mackey – 2014-04-11T14:31:20.310

Answers

You must use MicrosoftAccount\me@email.com (this MicrosoftAccount prefix is important) as username. Now enter your Microsoft account password into the password box.

magicandre1981

Posted 2014-04-11T01:20:36.837

Reputation: 86 560

have you tried this or not? – magicandre1981 – 2014-07-03T18:35:15.327

3This does not work either... – Matze – 2015-09-24T06:21:46.727

@Matze for me it works. Which issue do you have? Which Windows do you use? – magicandre1981 – 2015-09-24T16:00:39.437

@magicandre1981 I use Windows 10 Pro; and I try to connect to a Windows 8.1 machine... on both machines I use the same Microsoft-account. The machines are not in a domain; do I need to specify the machine name somehow, like I would do if I use a machine account? – Matze – 2015-09-25T15:53:49.053

@Matze look in the "Computer Management Console" under Users. Here Windows created also an account. In my Case André. I can use this name with the old machine name style. Try this. – magicandre1981 – 2015-09-26T05:28:09.583

@Matze I tried to connect from Windows 7 to Windows 8.1U1 with only me@email.com as the username. It worked. I tried it for both file sharing and RDP. (Of course, I had to enable RDP and add me@email.com to the list of allowed users. But it worked.) – None – 2016-07-31T08:02:11.433

4Windows 10 on both side. This worked for me. – Juha Palomäki – 2016-10-24T09:26:45.367

@JuhaPalomäki you're welcome, this is expected and works fine for me. I have no idea why it fails for the 2 other users. – magicandre1981 – 2016-10-24T15:27:53.607

This doesn't work for me. Two Windows 10 Pro computers, both connected to the same homegroup, both logging in with the same Microsoft account. I am unable to access \\OTHER\Users\me from either source computer. – Micah Zoltu – 2017-09-15T20:53:51.483

it works fine in Win8/10 for me and others, so you do something wrong. – magicandre1981 – 2017-09-16T06:06:57.900

This doesn't work for me. Both my desktop and laptop use same Microsoft account, and only from laptop to desktop can administrative shares be accessed. When trying from desktop to laptop I get challenged and the explicit declaration as MicrosoftAccount\me@domain.com keeps failing. – icelava – 2018-08-27T19:17:12.627

@icelava this works for me since Windows8, I have no idea why it fails. – magicandre1981 – 2018-08-28T14:51:05.723

Turns out a custom registry key needs to be inserted in the destination computer. https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/b1da2536-ba9b-4153-8719-7cc18fb927af/can-access-administrative-shared-folders-on-one-computer-but-not-the-other-way-around?forum=win10itpronetworking

– icelava – 2018-09-07T10:20:54.693

@icelava this is a different issue – magicandre1981 – 2018-09-07T13:53:31.383

I'm pretty sure this won't work if 2FA is enabled for the MS account. What an oversight. – bviktor – 2019-07-20T21:08:31.700

Insane. This actually works. @bviktor It does, in fact, work even with 2FA. – PNDA – 2019-11-09T03:44:15.457

Can you clarify MicrosoftAccount? Is that verbatim? AFAIK my Microsoft Account name is me@email.com. So I don't follow. – P.Brian.Mackey – 2014-04-11T19:39:03.013

yes, type it as written there and use your email address. This MicrosoftAccount\ prefix is used to tell Windows 8 that you use a MS online account. – magicandre1981 – 2014-04-12T06:21:42.917

Try disabling PIN login for the Microsoft Account (Settings > Accounts > Sign in options > PIN). Windows rejected my credentials until I removed the PIN, then I could sign in just using my email address.

Alyce

Posted 2014-04-11T01:20:36.837

Reputation: 151

it worked for me so thanks. – webofmars – 2020-01-02T16:47:16.890

I created a local "dummy" account with admin privileges and use it only as a login for sharing.

Steve Parker

Posted 2014-04-11T01:20:36.837

Reputation: 21

Figured it out. I was able to access a network share using my Microsoft account. This is the format:

Username: email address tied to your account
Password: password that you use to login to your Microsoft account online. Not the PIN

Anonymous

Posted 2014-04-11T01:20:36.837

Reputation: 29

1This is the same answer already given and accepted and does not add anything. Please refrain from posting when you are not actually adding anything to the discussion. – music2myear – 2017-01-21T00:31:53.810

2@music2myear no the top answer specifically says to add "MicrosoftAccount" to the beginning, which didn't work for me. I removed it per this answer and it worked. – Ben Baron – 2019-02-28T00:58:49.380

I had a similar problem, but was not even asked for my credentials before being denied access. It took me a while to figure this out, so here's what I had to do:

I previously tried home groups. Didn't like it, deactivated it.
I added the Microsoft Account user and logged in as that as well.
... however, that didn't yet work: the home group left some HomeUser group and credentials scattered in my system. I had to remove the HomeUser group and Credentials and (maybe after a reboot?) it finally worked.

Tobias Kienzler

Posted 2014-04-11T01:20:36.837

Reputation: 3 262

Deleting HomeGroup and HomeGroupUser from local accounts as well as removing them from credential manager then restarting fixed this for me! Thanks! – Micah Zoltu – 2019-05-31T07:41:40.917

I manage to overcome this by mapping from command line. Ex.: net use s: \tower\movies

Hope it helps

Miguel Pereira

Posted 2014-04-11T01:20:36.837

Reputation: 1

Don't have enough reputation to comment, but the answer by @Steve Parker worked great:

Create a local user account
Add it to the root folders you want to share (like my Users\username account in this case)
Add the local user account's credentials into your SMB client (in my case ES file explorer)

Willster419

Posted 2014-04-11T01:20:36.837

Reputation: 11

-2

Only thing below that worked for me after have tried all solutions in here.

From Gautam.75801 on social.technet.microsoft.com :

I got the Access is denied issue solved when i tried to access a Netowrk share on another computer

ex \\192.168.1.0\c$\

It seemed to be a UAC issue. The below Link helped.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/951016

We will need to add a new DWORD

Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then press ENTER.

Locate and then click the following registry subkey:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

If the LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy registry entry does not exist, follow these steps: On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.

Type LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy, and then press ENTER.

Right-click LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy, and then click Modify.

In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.

Exit Registry Editor.

Adelscott

Posted 2014-04-11T01:20:36.837

Reputation: 1

This enables Guest sharing which means that your shares are no longer password protected. This is not recommended at all and moreover doesn't solve the problem at hand. – Ashhar Hasan – 2018-08-06T19:13:18.343

@AshharHasan do you have any references that confirm that this is the case? – Holistic Developer – 2019-04-11T03:49:10.150