HELIOS Tech Info #194

PCShare G8 – Windows 11 support

We have successfully tested the new Windows 11 Professional and Home releases with the HELIOS PCShare G8 version. We tested SMB file sharing, the HELIOS Admin on Windows, the Spotlight Search and HELIOS Permissions Explorer Plug-ins. According to our initial tests all this works fine.

PCShare requires SMBv1 support which may be already enabled when upgrading to Windows 11. For Windows 11 clean installs SMB1 must be activated.

If you try to connect to PCShare without using SMBv1 you may receive one of the following error messages:

> The specified server cannot perform the requested operation.

> The specified network name is no longer available.

> You can't connect to the file share because it's not secure.

If you cannot connect from a Windows 11 client to remote HELIOS volumes, you may need to activate SMB1 first.

Enable SMBv1 via GUI

• Open the Windows “Control Panel”
• Click on “Programs” and then “Programs and Features”
• Click on “Turn Windows features on and off”
• Activate the “SMB 1.0/CIFS File Sharing Support” checkbox and click OK
  
  

After the Windows 11 client has restarted you can connect to remote HELIOS PCShare volumes.

Enable SMBv1 via the Windows PowerShell

Open an adminitrative Windows PowerShell (right click, “Run as administrator”). To check the current status of SMBv1, run the command:
# Get-WindowsOptionalFeature –Online –FeatureName SMB1Protocol

To enable SMBv1, run the following command:
# Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName SMB1Protocol

After the Windows 11 client has restarted you can connect to remote HELIOS PCShare volumes.

We will update this Tech Info upon changes.

Will PCShare support SMBv2/3?

PCShare still uses SMBv1 to provide the broadest compatibility to all supported clients. However, Microsoft has started to abandon SMBv1. It is clear that a SMBv2/3 support for PCShare is very important for our clients. HELIOS is working on the SMBv2/3 implementation with high priority.