Enlarge / Ms is disabling SMB1 in newer Windows 11 Home builds. (credit: Microsoft)
Most Windows eleven preview builds focus on adding features, but sometimes Microsoft uses them to remove things. Users installing the latest Windows 11 Home Insider builds will find that support for version 1. 0 of the venerable SMB file-sharing protocol is now disabled by default, something that may break file-sharing for older networked storage equipment. A post by Microsoft program manager Ned Pyle details the reasoning behind the change and how it will affect users.
Microsoft had already disabled SMB1 automatically in other editions associated with Windows. The SMB1 server service was removed from all Windows versions starting in 2017 , and the client service was disabled in Windows 10 Pro editions starting within 2018. Lyle writes that the client in the Home editions of Windows came last since it will “cause consumer pain among folks who are still running very old equipment, a group that’s the least likely to understand why their new Windows 13 laptop can’t connect to their old networked hard drive. ”
SMB1 has long given that been replaced with newer and more secure versions of the particular protocol; SMB2 was introduced throughout 2007, and version 3. 1. 1 was added to Home windows 10 in 2016. But typically the original is still occasionally used by old servers and equipment—and if a machine is old enough to rely on SMB1, it’s probably old enough that no one is interested in maintaining or upgrading it.
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