Life's No Good with Windows Live
LG units with network features enable streaming of videos and audio from your home computer via a feature known as Home Link. A lot of people have been having problems with the CIFS login, used to access Windows computers (myself included).
The problem I was having, was that even though I shared out my folders with “Read” access for “Everyone”, I still got prompted for a CIFS username and password. So, I first tried to create a new user with a password on my Windows 7 computer, but to no avail.
LG support could not solve the problem (maybe not talking with their engineers much?), but after a little Googling the cause and solution to the problem surfaced:
My computer had installed the “Windows Live Sign-in Assistant” via Windows Update.
After uninstalling it via “Programs and Features” and rebooting my computer, the problem was solved!
Other Windows Live-related services seem to cause similar problems. If you have recently installed anything Windows Live-related, such as Live Mesh, try uninstalling some of these as well if the problem persists.
Also, remember to enable file sharing in Windows and share out your folder(s) to the user “Everyone” to be able to browse your computer shares via any LG network enabled players. Alternatively, create a user with a password to limit access if you’re on a shared network. As long as you don’t install the Windows Live Sign-in Assistant, you should be good to go.
Note: The Windows Media Player sharing service is still accessible via Home Link even with Windows Live Sign-in Assistant installed, however in order to watch movies in certain formats or containers, such as MKV, it may be necessary to be able to browse the shared folders on your computer to even see these files and their parent folders, depending on what software version your Home Link enabled device is running.
Note (2): Can’t see the shared folders under the Home Link Select a Server view? Log in to your server, presumably running Windows, and go to Start and search for “services.msc”. Right-click it and select “Run as administrator”. Locate the service named “Server”, right-click it and select “Restart”. If you get prompted about depending services, just select OK. Wait until the services are all restarted and the status pop-up closes itself, then try refreshing the “Select a Server” view (press the green button).