How to Enable or Disable SMBv2 in Windows 10 & 11

By Timothy Tibbetts

on 06/15/2023

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If you need to disable or enable SMBv2 for troubleshooting purposes, it's easy to do for any skill level. Here's what to do.

Server Message Block (SMB) is a communication protocol for providing shared access to files, printers, and serial ports between nodes on a network and providing an authenticated inter-process communication (IPC) mechanism.

You might need to enable or disable SMB2, or you might be here to troubleshoot problems, including the common Your system requires SMB2 or higher errors.

To enable SMBv2, you want to confirm your operating system can run it. Most Windows 10 operating systems can.

Open the Powershell and type in Get-SmbServerConfiguration | Select EnableSMB2Protocol.

You should receive a True in response, meaning you can run SMB2 on your computer. If not, you might need to be sure you have the latest build of Windows.

To enable SMBv2 on your computer, type in:
Set-SmbServerConfiguration –EnableSMB2Protocol $true

To disable SMBv2 on your computer, type in:
Set-SmbServerConfiguration -EnableSMB2Protocol $false

SMBv2 should be disabled by default. If you don't have a reason to enable SMBv2, don't.