I have a Windows Server 2012 (non-domain) with a folder that's shared out as TestShare.
The share permissions are Everyone has full access, and there is a local user TestUser that has full access to the actual folder.
On GuestServer I can connect and/or map a drive to \HostServer\TestShare, specifying the username and password for TestUser.
NTFS permissions:
Share permissions
Effective Access Report
The problem is that when I try to access the folder, I get an "access denied" message.
On the host server I can see the user connected to the share in the Sessions manager, so the password is correct and being recognised. If I use an incorrect password I don't get the "completed successfully" message, nor the 'open session'.
What else can be blocking access to the shared files, when the share seems to be set, and the folder permissions seem to be set, and the connection seems to be okay?
The network is recognised as "public", and the relevant firewall rules seem to be enabled - even disabling the firewall doesn't help.
Share permissions for Everyone is full - good What about ntfs permissions ?
Log on locally to the server , right click the folder and check ntfs permissions .... Make sure test user is there with read or modify access at least.
When accessing over a network .... Share and ntfs permissions are evaluated and the most restrictive set applied.
Check ntfs permissions
You might try changing the 'everyone' share permissions for 'authenticated users'? We've got a Windows 2012 server here working as a file server just fine (domain member though) and that's about the only difference between what you're doing and what we're doing.
This was a problem resulting from a misconfiguration of the base Windows images on the part of Rackspace. They have now updated the base Images, and the new servers I built seem to have fixed the problem.