Windows-11 network-drive file-sharing network-discovery

Question

Hello. I am unable to access my network drive at Rhodes University. Network Discovery and File Sharing are turned off. When I try to turn them on it asks for an Administrator password.

Answer 1

If Windows prompts for an administrator password when you try to enable them, your account does not have permission to make the change. You'd need to contact your university IT support or the administrator of the computer to enable these setting.

That aside, accessing a mapped network drive does not require Network Discovery or File and Printer Sharing to be enabled. A network drive can be accessed directly using its drive letter of a UNC path (for example, \\server\share) as long as the computer can reach the server, the required network protocols are available, and the user has permissions. Network Discovery is mainly used to find devices and shares automatically, not to access a known network location. The administrator prompt likely indicates that your organization has applied a security policy or restricted network settings on the computer, rather than the network drive itself requiring those settings.

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hth

Marcin