Shared folders on encrypted drive (Windows 11 PC) can't be accessed by any...
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I have a network with two Windows 11 PCs, and a couple Windows 7 PCs. I'm trying to store my data on an external drive containing a single encrypted (Veracrypt) partition on one of the Win11 PCs. From the other computers, I am able to see the list of shares, but I get the "permission denied" message when I click on them. I can access any share that is for an unencrypted data. If I move the encrypted drive to one of the windows 7 computers, and mount it, all shares I create are accessable, including those for the encrypted data. Even the other Win11 PC is denied access. I've tried unchecking "mount selected volume as removeable medium." It had no effect. I have the same named account on each computer, and I give that account full control of the shares I create. I've also tried giving full control to Everyone. No luck. All of the computers belong to the same Workgroup.
I was intrigued by your post. This is not something I normally do, but I have been experimenting, and confirm that it no longer appears possible to share a mounted VC volume over the network if the base 'server' PC runs W10 or W11. I have a suite of the latter on my LAN; I always get 'permission denied' errors if I try to access a shared mounted VC volume on one from another PC.
However, oddly, I have ancient Buffalo NAS devices; if I mount a VC volume stored on one of them on a W10/11 PC, that can be accessed normally from any other PC.
One has to assume it is a Windows problem, rather than a VC one; after all, permissions are set on the 'server'. If you can access the contents of the volume from the 'server' PC itself, via 'Network', you should be able to from other PCs. However, I've tried all sorts of things to see if the problem can be reolved, without success; disabling the Firewall, all the 'protections' in Windows Security etc. Nothing changes.
The other thought was it's to do with the upgraded versions of CIFS/SMB, but I'm still running the 'insecure' version 1.0 on all my devices, precisely so I can access my ancient NAS devices, since Buffalo have not offered an upgrade to the firmware to the more secure version. (This doesn't worry me; all my important data is stored in VC volumes, and backed up in multiple ways.)
I'll keep on the case; more anon. But, fellow users, can you shared mounted VC volumes from W10/11? Please experiment, and let us know!
Thank you so much for looking into this. So, are you saying that from a W11PC, you're mounting remotely over your LAN, a VC volume that resides on a non-W10,11 PC? I tried that but I can't create a share of the unmounted drive on my W7 because there's no file system.. Am I misunderstanding what you did?
Just to set some context, I'm currently still running VC 1.25.7 on all my PCs, and I only use VC file containers (so much more convenient and flexible when it comes to backup). All my file containers are formatted NTFS; most are stored on NAS devices which run on unix-based OSs, in 'shared' folders whose read/write permissions are set using the NAS GUI. most without additional access restriction.
I can access a VC file container stored on the NAS, from a PC over the LAN (W10 as it happens, but I assume W11 as well), and mount it (using VC) on the PC. That mounted VC volume can then be 'shared' (read/write permissions for everyone) on the PC, and accessed over the LAN from any other PC.
Most of these NAS-stored file containers were created years ago ie probably when I was running W7 on my PCs, over the LAN ie created in a shared NAS folder (using VC) from a PC. As one of my experiments yesterday I created a new small NTFS-formatted VC file container in a shared folder on the NAS from my PC; I could mount it on my PC, apparently 'share' it, but got 'permission denied' when I tried to access it from another PC.
So, the underlying base OS of the storage medium seems to be irrelevant, but the Windows OS used to create the file container appears to be relevant. It certainly is the case that Windows has had its security features considerably hardened recently (eg 'Ransomware' protection, with its 'protected folders' caused all sorts of issues when it was first introduced), but my turning off all such features didn't solve the problem.
Thus far, I have no further ideas. Will keep thinking!
I tried several disks that were encrypted on a W7 PC, mounting them on a W11 PC and creating shares to the data. No PC could access them. I tried both file containers and partition containers. In all cases, moving the USB cable from the W11 to a W7 PC and repeating the procedure produced successful sharing. I also tried something else. I connected a disk containing encrypted file containers to a W7 PC. I shared the directory containing the containers, and accessed one of the unmounted file containers from a W11 PC, mounted it, then created a share to its data. From a third W7 PC, I tried to access that share, and got permission denied. I don't know if this adds anything. It's still basically a W11 PC not being able to share encrypted data.