Windows command “net use” failed when login with a no password account

Question

My experimental network: 2 windows 7 PCs.

When using below commands trying to connect to PC2 (admin account with no password):

net use X: \\PC2\c$ /user:PC2\administrator

It will get:

System error 5 has occurred.
Access is denied.

However, if set a password to PC2 admin account, and do below:

net use X: \\PC2\c$ /user:PC2\administrator mypwd

This will work.

Is it necessary to have the password set to enable windows file sharing?

Why would you ever want to make a password-less Administrator account network-accessible? — grawity, Mar 5 '11 at 10:48

score 4 · Accepted Answer

By default, blank passwords aren't allowed for network login. To change this, modify the relevant setting in the Local Security Policy MMC snapin.

Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\Security Options\Accounts: Limit local account use of blank passwords to console logon only

See here for details.

2 Answers 2