VirtualBox XP host on Yosemite fails to connect to Mac share

Question

Upon upgrade to Yosemite, my VirtualBox Windows VMs no longer connect to shares on the host Mac e.g. \\my-mac's-name\folder-name. It seems to see them (in Network Places) and either continually prompts for the password regardless of whether I enter the correct password, or reports that the network path cannot be found.

I have confirmed that the host Mac's sharing is on (for SMB, AFP and Windows file sharing is on for the applicable account) and that I'm using the appropriate user in the connection attempt.

Any ideas on how to start diagnosing this?

VB is up to date.

Answer 1

The issue is XP uses an earlier SMB protocol. Yosemite shares ARE seen on Win 7. There is talk but I cannot find how to force Yosemite to use the earlier protocol.

Answer 2

It seems that you need to make a small change on the Windows XP side for this work, in the local security policy.

1. Click Start
2. Click Control Panel
3. Click System and Maintenance
4. Click Administrative Tools
5. Double-Click Local Security Policy
6. In the left pane, click the triangle next to Local Policy
7. In the left pane, click Security Options
8. In the right pane near the bottom, double-click "Network security: LAN manager authentication level"
9. Click the drop-down box, and click "Send LM & NTLM - use Send NTLMv2 response only"
10. Click OK

This solution is suggested here.