Windows 10 and 11 Connecting to Guest Share with SMB2 and SMB3

Jan - 14 2023 | By

Windows 11 may generate a message of:

You can't access this shared folder because your organization's security policies block unauthenticated guest access. These policies help protect your PC from unsafe or malicious devices on the network.

or

Error code: 0x80070035
The network path was not found.

This may occur connecting to a older server or Network Storage device that is expecting a connection as a Guest user.  Windows 11 will disable this ability to connect as a Guest to increase security but you can add the following registry entry to continue to connect to a share as a Guest.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanWorkstation\Parameters] "AllowInsecureGuestAuth"=dword:1

If you connect to a SMB1 host with Guest shares those should continue to work without this additional registry change.

See more – https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-server/networking/guest-access-in-smb2-is-disabled-by-default