Cannot delete folders on a network drive from Windows 7

The fact that XP doesn't have these problems but Win7/Vista do is a dead giveaway. One of the biggest network changes in Vista/7 was the introduction of SMB v2.0. Along with that, they considerably beefed up the Windows Authentication process for the NTLM.

More than likely, the Samba server running in MyBook isn't up to date compatible with NTLMv2 and/or SMBv2. In general, Vista/7 will balk at older authentication methods that XP was ok with.

Some of the settings you should try. Go to your Win7 gpedit.msc:

  • Biggest one is check the LAN Manager Authentication Method. Vista/7 uses NTLMv2 only. XP can also use NTLMv2, but falls back to NTLM. Switch the setting to Send LM & NTLM. (the Default in XP was actually send NTML only)
  • Network Security: NTML SSP Session security: This is unlikely the solution, but 7 now requires 128 bit encryption
  • Network access: Allow Anonymous SID - Enabled -Domain Member: Digitally encrypt..... (always) This was disabled under XP. XP used the "when possible" option.

I hope some of this helps

Try those two settings and we can go from there

**Edit **

I should probably clarify where I'm going with this. Basically, we are reproducing XP's network security settings one by one on the Windows 7 machine until we see where it hiccups.

All the way to the point where we are just authenticating as anonymous and logging on with a guest account :) It's possible that the software inside the MyBook could just be straight up incompatible with Win7's network security.


I suspect that the files on your networked drive are set as "Read Only" - The fix is pretty simple. Right click on a file or folder, click PROPERTIES, then click GENERAL, and in ATTRIBUTES un-click "Read Only" and then you should be able to delete your files (at least most of them). I had the same problem with Linksys3000, a networked hard drive and W7.


Go to command prompt and type rd /s/q directory.