[GUIDE] Windows 10 Shared Folder Problems & Solutions

There are a lot of posts asking for help on successfully sharing a folder in Windows 10 that can be mounted by Volumio. This is partly due to changes by Microsoft as to which versions of the smb protocol it accepts, and also the complexities of Windows permissions, and how they are changed/interact.

I don’t use Windows very much myself nowadays, but since I had a fresh installation on a new ssd, I thought it would be a good idea to have a look at the simplest way that I could get a shared folder that Volumio can mount, before I had tinkered with the Windows settings at all.

Find your folder that you want to share in File Explorer (in my case this was ‘Win10Music’). Right click on it and hovering over ‘Give access to’, select ‘Specific people’.

Make sure that the user you want is highlighted and click on the ‘Share’ button

The folder is confirmed as being shared and you can see the actual share name (share path) after the computer name (Win10Music here). Click on ‘Done’.

Open up your browser, point it at the IP address of your Volumio device, and select ‘Settings’ followed by ‘Sources’.

Add a new drive, and then fill out the various fields (including the ‘Advanced Options’). ‘Alias’ can be anything that you like; it is simply what you are calling the source. ‘NAS IP Address’ should be set to your Windows 10 PC IP address. ‘Path’ is the share name that we found/set earlier. ‘File Share Type’ is the networking file transfer protocol being used. ‘Username’ and ‘Password’ are whatever you have set on your Windows system. Note that I tried this initially with a passwordless account, but this fails. In the ‘Options’ field add “vers=3.0”, which sets the version of smb (cifs) being used. That this was necessary surprised me, because I thought this was offred by default. Click on ‘Save’ and hopefully you will see the folder being successfully mounted.


Hopefully this provides a starting point for other people to contribute, and get your problems sorted :slight_smile:

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That worked! adding “vers=3.0” under options fixed it.

Interesting how I do not have to type a path to the music folder, just the name of the shared folder.

about half my folders show album art, the others just folders, but the art shows when they play. my music is tagged well.

Thank you

Paths are not needed, because the shared folder name is identified by the host machine as the share…remote machines do need to know about absolute or relative paths.

If you have turned on smb1 in windows 10 you have to add “vers=1.0”

@MellowMart Not a good idea to use smb v1 (vulnerabilities) unless you are forced to do so by older hardware.

I am aware of that, it was turned on whilst i was using an old android box.
The post was to assist folk as its another reason for the windows shares not working.

Thank you so much, this did the trick for me!

What did the trick? now I get a spinning circle quite a bit when trying to play my local files.

Also, half of my albums do not show album art because I do not have art .jpg file in each folder. I tried to figure out how to do this for my library with mp3tag and no luck.

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Now I have music at 3x speed , mickey mouse.

I have follow your procedure, but the shared disk isn’t flagged as “Mounted” in Volumio. I use Windows 11, and I think the problem is in Windows configuration.

Any hints?

Did you figure it out?

I just shared a new folder and it mounted. Win10, should be similar.

shared disk or shared folder?

Please explain what you wnat to do, as some comments/pictures are in contrary.
You want to mount a windows 10 share in volumio or do you want to mount a volumio share in Windows 10?

mount a windows 10 share in volumio. giving up, too jet-lagged. thank for the reply

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Thanks for sharing your experience and solution to Windows 10 shared folder problems. It can be quite frustrating to figure out how to get everything working correctly, especially with changes in the smb protocol and Windows permissions. Your step-by-step guide is very helpful, and I’m sure it will be useful to others who are struggling with this issue.
It’s interesting to know that you had to add “vers=3.0” in the ‘Options’ field to set the version of smb being used. I guess it’s always good to check and make sure that the correct version is being used.
By the way, if you’re looking for a place to get a cheap Windows key, you might want to check out reddit windows keys. They often have good deals and discounts on genuine Windows keys.

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That works :wink:
Thanks for a very good guid.