Backup to network or homegroup computer with no password
With Acronis 2011 and 2012 in Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit and Acronis 2011 boot cd, when I try to browse for destination for the backup, it lets me bring up the list of computers on my home network (from the network list or the homegroup list) and I can even pick a folder, but it asks for a username and password. Problem is, the computer I'm trying to backup up to doesn't have a password. When the person who uses that computer installed Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, he picked a computer name and username but just hit enter instead of putting a password so he wouldn't have to log in. I did the same on mine. We are the only two who use them and until now, it's worked just fine.
I've tried just the username, and computername\username in the username field, but in Windows it wont even try to connect or test connection without something in the password box. When booting from the Acronis 2011 bootdisk, it will try without a password, but fails. I can hit cancel, and it seems to act like it will do the backup, but then it keeps popping up the box to put in the username and password.
In Windows Explorer I have no problem moving files between computers.
Since neither computer has a password, am I correct in assuming that it is impossible to backup one computer to the other with Acronis 2011 or 2012 over the network or homegroup?
Ah. That was it. I thought since I never had to enter a password since the homegroup password right after Windows install to share files under either homegroup or network, I didn't have to ever. For everything I wanted to share, I just right-clicked and picked share with homegroup. After reading your message though, I did properties on the new directory then - Sharing - Network and Sharing Center - Password protected sharing. Turned off password protected sharing but that still didn't get it until I also went back to the sharing tab, clicked the share tab, and picked who could share it. It's backing up right now. Once it's done though, I may turn password protected sharing back on and see if Acronis can still get through to it now that the other computer is on the list of ok share users.
Thank you.
Well, that was it for inside windows. After it backup finished and verified, I tried restore and it seemed willing to let me go through the whole process. Then I rebooted with the Acronis boot disk. When I picked restore, it defaulted to the right directory and file on the other computer with me even having to tell it where to look. However, when I tried to take it to the next step, it wanted a username and password before going on. Looks like I'm sticking with the flash drive or dvd-r idea.
Hi Charles,
Thanks for updating us with your progress. In this case, the boot environment is not going to reconnect to a shared resource automatically. It's just standard authentication. Windows however works as you discovered. Assigning the correct permissions with a password should work.
The downside to using DVD media is:
a. It's slower
b. Back ups which span multiple disks need to be copied to one directory for restore
c. I always keep an original image on another HDD. DVD media should only be used as secondary storage for achival purposes. Although back up to DVD is fully supported... This is just my personal preference.