You can ssh into your qnap, edit the smb conf file and enable ntlmv1 and lanman if you don't want to bother with setting up Windows 95 for NTLMV2 or according to my notes from when I last did this and checking against https://blog.udance.com.au/2017/07/10/stronge … -for-windows-95 :

1. Install IE4 (If you do the full install of Active Directory Update)
2. Install Winsock 2
3. Install "Active Directory Update" or just copy vnetsup.vxd and vredir.vxd to the SYSTEM directory.
4. Add this registry key

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\control\LSA]
"LMCompatibility"=dword:00000003

Or just use Windows 98SE and save yourself the trouble - it's what Win 3.11 is to Win 3.0.

Btw, Windows 9x used permissions per folder; Windows NT uses permissions per user.
At the core, they have a completely different concept of network security.

Some links/sources can be found here:
Windows 98 PC suddenly stopped appearing in the Network on my main (Windows 7) PC

Edit: I did forget - please never let old Windows machines connect to the internet (a pure retro LAN is fine). Especially without a supervision.
It's grossly negligent. People behaved in such a bad way in the late XP days. 😰
IMHO such people should be hold accountable for any damage in case their PCs become part of a bot net.

You can also use WebDAV on QNAP to access your NAS share from Windows 95.
On the Windows 95 side you'll need at least IE5 with the optional webfolders feature installed.

Here's a little guide:
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl … n.htm&sandbox=1

DosFreak wrote on 2021-05-09, 11:05:

https://blog.udance.com.au/2017/07/10/stronge … -for-windows-95 : […]
Show full quote

https://blog.udance.com.au/2017/07/10/stronge … -for-windows-95 :

1. Install IE4 (If you do the full install of Active Directory Update)
2. Install Winsock 2
3. Install "Active Directory Update" or just copy vnetsup.vxd and vredir.vxd to the SYSTEM directory.
4. Add this registry key

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\control\LSA]
"LMCompatibility"=dword:00000003

This was the correct solution, thank you very much 😀 (Instead of IE4 I installed 5.5.)

Answering the other ideas:
I did not want to SSH into the NAS and make edits directly. I'm not scared, but the NAS is even sensitive to restarting or firmware upgrades - don't ask why. There are two 10 TB HDDs inside and I'm just happy when it works.
This machine I was talking about is a 486 DX4-100 with 16MB RAM, and I did not want to install Win98SE on purpose. I have Voodoo1/2/3 machines as well with Win98SE, I wanted to install an authentic OS on this one- this will be my only Win95 machine. (I also have a 386 DX40, I installed Win3.11 there. And unfortunately I could not manage to access the shares from that machine yet, too.)

WebDav would be okay, but I'd rather use FTP 😀

Thanks again, everyone!

Jo22 wrote on 2021-05-09, 12:01:

Edit: I did forget - please never let old Windows machines connect to the internet (a pure retro LAN is fine). Especially without a supervision.
It's grossly negligent. People behaved in such a bad way in the late XP days. 😰
IMHO such people should be hold accountable for any damage in case their PCs become part of a bot net.

Really good that you mentioned, thanks. I will restrict these machines. (Everything is behind MikroTiK routers and firewalls, but better be safe than sorry. Accessing the internet is only interesting, but accessing the LAN is much more important.)

Jo22 wrote on 2021-05-09, 12:01:

Or just use Windows 98SE and save yourself the trouble - it's what Win 3.11 is to Win 3.0.

Win 3.11 is just win3.1 with half a dozen core system files upgraded.
Wfw3.11 is just Wfw3.1 with extra network card drivers and the same core system files upgraded as per Win3.1.

As for bot nets I've had aboslutely no issues with win9x and below, NT up on the other hand.........

Those old operating systems require SMB v1 support. On newer windows and many NASes, you could enable support for that, but this opens you up for all kinds of nasty security holes.

What i've done is that i have a linux VM in my modern workstation. When i need my retro stuff access the SMB shares, i'll run the VM and later shut it down.
The VM mounts the shares from NAS and then re-shares them with SMB v1 support. With my retro machines, i connect to the VM for those shares instead of NAS directly.

Works perfectly.

(In addition, i've made the VM to act as dial-up ISP, so i can also enjoy 33,6k internet speeds over COM port, if i don't want to go with ethernet 😀 )

DosFreak wrote on 2021-05-09, 11:05:

You can ssh into your qnap, edit the smb conf file and enable ntlmv1 and lanman if you don't want to bother with setting up Wind […]
Show full quote

You can ssh into your qnap, edit the smb conf file and enable ntlmv1 and lanman if you don't want to bother with setting up Windows 95 for NTLMV2 or according to my notes from when I last did this and checking against https://blog.udance.com.au/2017/07/10/stronge … -for-windows-95 :

1. Install IE4 (If you do the full install of Active Directory Update)
2. Install Winsock 2
3. Install "Active Directory Update" or just copy vnetsup.vxd and vredir.vxd to the SYSTEM directory.
4. Add this registry key

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\control\LSA]
"LMCompatibility"=dword:00000003

Hmmm, I ran all of these steps and it's still unable to connect to my TrueNAS or any other share.

I'm still just seeing the \\TRUENAS\IPC$, unable to enter a username and it won't accept the password.

This is on my IBM Aptiva rebuilt from the recovery disc. Running Windows 95 OSR 2 (maybe?) 4.00.950 B.

Updates:
Microsoft Plus!
IE 4 SP2
Winsock 2
Active Directory Update + NTLM2
Common Controls Update

Any ideas?

EDIT: I figured it out! Along with all of the requirements already mentioned, you also need to use "Client for Microsoft Networks" as the Primary Network Logon in Control Panel > Network.

Then when logging into your Win95 machine, use the same username and password that you use to access the NAS share.

And then it works!

Apols for the necro bump but it's very relevant to this thread. I followed the guidance here (https://blog.udance.com.au/2017/07/10/stronge … -for-windows-95) to connect my Windows 95 machine to my SMB network shares (truenas). It worked perfectly and it's amazing just being able to transfer stuff over the nework to the machine, rather than having to swap my CF drive in and out all the time. However, I also want to browse the web on the Windows 95 machine (just fun sites like theoldnet.com, made specifically for this reason). This is working fine, but I'm very aware that having a Win 95 machine online and accessing my network shares at the same time is probably a disaster waiting to happen.

Is there a secure way of having this machine access the internet and my network shares at the same time? I'm thinking the only way is having 2 x CF card Win95 installations, one with internet configured but not network, and vice versa for the other.

jimnastics wrote on 2025-01-26, 09:46:

Apols for the necro bump but it's very relevant to this thread. I followed the guidance here (https://blog.udance.com.au/2017/07/10/stronge … -for-windows-95) to connect my Windows 95 machine to my SMB network shares (truenas). It worked perfectly and it's amazing just being able to transfer stuff over the nework to the machine, rather than having to swap my CF drive in and out all the time. However, I also want to browse the web on the Windows 95 machine (just fun sites like theoldnet.com, made specifically for this reason). This is working fine, but I'm very aware that having a Win 95 machine online and accessing my network shares at the same time is probably a disaster waiting to happen.

Is there a secure way of having this machine access the internet and my network shares at the same time? I'm thinking the only way is having 2 x CF card Win95 installations, one with internet configured but not network, and vice versa for the other.

There are methods that don't involve multiple CF configurations:

You could create a new user on TrueNAS specifically for the Win9x machine that has read-only permissions and only to game/driver files and not the entire NAS.

Alongside this, if you have a Ubiquity Dream Machine or a self-hosted router running pfSense or OPNsense, you can create a VLAN (Virtual LAN) where the Win9x machine can only see the NAS and not every other machine on your network.

IcySon55 wrote on 2025-01-26, 10:01:

There are methods that don't involve multiple CF configurations: […]
Show full quote

jimnastics wrote on 2025-01-26, 09:46:

Apols for the necro bump but it's very relevant to this thread. I followed the guidance here (https://blog.udance.com.au/2017/07/10/stronge … -for-windows-95) to connect my Windows 95 machine to my SMB network shares (truenas). It worked perfectly and it's amazing just being able to transfer stuff over the nework to the machine, rather than having to swap my CF drive in and out all the time. However, I also want to browse the web on the Windows 95 machine (just fun sites like theoldnet.com, made specifically for this reason). This is working fine, but I'm very aware that having a Win 95 machine online and accessing my network shares at the same time is probably a disaster waiting to happen.

Is there a secure way of having this machine access the internet and my network shares at the same time? I'm thinking the only way is having 2 x CF card Win95 installations, one with internet configured but not network, and vice versa for the other.

There are methods that don't involve multiple CF configurations:

You could create a new user on TrueNAS specifically for the Win9x machine that has read-only permissions and only to game/driver files and not the entire NAS.

Alongside this, if you have a Ubiquity Dream Machine or a self-hosted router running pfSense or OPNsense, you can create a VLAN (Virtual LAN) where the Win9x machine can only see the NAS and not every other machine on your network.

Oh thanks, that first suggestion of creating a new user with read-only seems ideal! I can create a new small share just for the Win95 to access read-only. I will set that up for sure and see how I get on.

On the second point, I don't use a self-hosted router, just a pi running pi-hole for the whole network. Sure I would have a machine stored away somewhere that could serve as a self-hosted router, though. So the benefit of this would be that the Win95 machine would be blocked from making any connections to any other device on the network?

I just use the bundled SSH server on the host (be it NAS, a Linux box or whatever) and the latest PuTTY on Windows 95 to transfer files over the network. No need to install IE, fiddle with updates/services or extensions, and no need to enable SMB1 or otherwise lower security on the system sharing your files.

The included pscp-utility on Win95 works just like the scp-command does on macOS, Linux, and I guess later versions of Windows. If your NAS allows login via SSH, there's a pretty good chance you can also enable file transfers too. Simple and secure.

leonardo wrote on 2025-01-26, 11:17:

I just use the bundled SSH server on the host (be it NAS, a Linux box or whatever) and the latest PuTTY on Windows 95 to transfer files over the network. No need to install IE, fiddle with updates/services or extensions, and no need to enable SMB1 or otherwise lower security on the system sharing your files.

The included pscp-utility on Win95 works just like the scp-command does on macOS, Linux, and I guess later versions of Windows. If your NAS allows login via SSH, there's a pretty good chance you can also enable file transfers too. Simple and secure.

Fantastic, thanks, I hadn't thought of that either. I'll have a play around!

jimnastics wrote on 2025-01-26, 11:34:

leonardo wrote on 2025-01-26, 11:17:

I just use the bundled SSH server on the host (be it NAS, a Linux box or whatever) and the latest PuTTY on Windows 95 to transfer files over the network. No need to install IE, fiddle with updates/services or extensions, and no need to enable SMB1 or otherwise lower security on the system sharing your files.

The included pscp-utility on Win95 works just like the scp-command does on macOS, Linux, and I guess later versions of Windows. If your NAS allows login via SSH, there's a pretty good chance you can also enable file transfers too. Simple and secure.

Fantastic, thanks, I hadn't thought of that either. I'll have a play around!

Please note that PuTTY for Windows 95 is a specific build, which you can download from here. (v. 0.82 is latest at the time of writing)

jimnastics wrote on 2025-01-26, 10:54:

So the benefit of this would be that the Win95 machine would be blocked from making any connections to any other device on the network?

Correct. Preventing any possibility of the machine being compromised and used to infiltrate your other computers/devices.