The following article discusses editing your computer’s registry. Such action may lead to serious issue with your computer if not done properly. This website and it’s contributor’s assumes none responsibility for any of the information provided. Follow these steps at your own risk!

I was recently helping a colleague who had hit a wall with regards to configuring a client’s new computer which was running Windows 7 Home Edition with their Unix file server and database server (heart of their business).

Now, if you perform a search online, you will find numerous articles which explain that you can in fact connect Windows 7 to a UNIX server, but you have to ‘dumb it down a little’. To do so, you need to make 2 modifications to your Security Policies.

Go to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Local Security Policy (Or Run secpol.msc)
Local Policies – Security Options

Locate the Network security: LAN Manager authentication level Policy
Change the Local Security Setting to Send LM & NTLM responses

Locate the Minimum session security for NTLM SSP Policy
Uncheck the Local Security Setting Require 128-bit encryption property

The problem is the fact that this may work if you are running Windows 8 Professional or Ultimate, but on Windows 7 Home Edition, the Local Security Policy Management Console is not available. So what is one to do?

Well, you can get around this problem, but you must edit 2 registry keys!

Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa Key and then create a new DWord Key

ValueName: LmCompatibilityLevel
ValueData: 1
Base: Hexadecimal

Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\control\LSA\MSV1_0 registry key and edit the NtlmMinClientSec Key and change it to 0

Finally, reboot your computer. You should now be able to access your UNIX server files without the never ending login prompt…