I set up a new laptop last week, and the last step took the longest. File Explorer would open my NAS, ask for a login, and then fail with this message:

A specified logon session does not exist. It may already have been terminated.

That is Windows error 1312. This post is the fix that worked for me, and the setup that led up to it. I wrote an older post about a NAS that wouldn’t connect because of a bad Wi-Fi driver. This one is a different cause.

The Need: You Type the Right Password and It Still Fails

If you see error 1312 when you map a Synology NAS on a fresh Windows 11 install, the password is probably fine. Check that first by logging in to the NAS web page (DSM, port 5000) with the same name and password. If that works, the password is right.

What worked for me was to skip the saved-credentials step and map the folder from the command line. Open Terminal or PowerShell and run:

net use * /delete /y
net use Z: \\192.168.x.x\home /user:YOUR-NAS-NAME\your-username * /persistent:yes

It asks for the password. Nothing shows on screen while you type. That is normal. When it says the command completed successfully, a Z: drive appears under This PC.

On a Korean keyboard, the backslash \ shows as ₩. It is the same character. Type it as it appears.

The Proof: It Worked, With Two Surprises

After the command, my home folder showed up as Z:. Then I had two questions.

“Why don’t I see my other shared folders?” Because I mapped only one share. Type \\192.168.x.x in the File Explorer address bar and the full list appears, with no new password prompt, since you are already logged in.

“Why is the homes folder missing?” On Synology, homes holds every user’s private folder, and only an administrator sees it. My everyday account is not an administrator, so it is hidden. My own folder is the one called home. If another shared folder is missing, the account may simply lack permission. In DSM, go to Control Panel, Shared Folder, select the folder, Edit, Permissions.

I do not know the real cause of error 1312 on this machine. Claude’s first guess was Credential Guard. A few minutes later it corrected itself: that feature is on by default only in Enterprise and Education editions, and I installed Home or Pro. The next guesses were a Microsoft account with a PIN, or a local account with no password. I did not test those. The net use command worked, so I stopped there.

The Story: A Laptop With No Windows

The machine is a Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Gen 6 (AMD, Ryzen 5 7000 series, model 21M3). I bought it without Windows, so I had to install the system myself. Claude asked me for the serial number so it could look up the exact parts, and the Lenovo parts page showed the Wi-Fi card: a Realtek 8852CE. That matters, because Lenovo lists three different Wi-Fi drivers for this one model, for three different chips. A wrong driver would not help.

💬 Prompt that worked “I want to install Windows on another Windows-free laptop using the USB. Anything on the connected USB can be erased. Please make it an install USB.”

I had earlier asked for a driver, and Claude had found one for the PC I was typing on. I had to say, “this is for the other laptop.” That one sentence saved me from installing the wrong thing.

The How: Make the Install USB, Then Handle the Wi-Fi Trap

Everything below ran from my main Windows PC. Cost for these steps: $0. I left activation for later, so I have no license cost to report.

  1. Download the ISO. From Microsoft’s Windows 11 page, choose the Korean 64-bit ISO. Mine was about 8.1GB and took about 26 minutes. Save it to the C: drive, not the USB, because the USB is about to be erased.
  2. Format the USB as FAT32. A UEFI laptop like this one boots from FAT32. My USB is 58.6GB, so I made a 32GB FAT32 partition and left the rest empty.
  3. Split the big file. Windows’ install.wim is over 4GB, and FAT32 can’t hold a file that large. Split it into two pieces, install.swm and install2.swm (Windows’ DISM tool can do this), and Windows Setup joins them on its own.
  4. Put the drivers on the USB in a Drivers folder. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, from Lenovo’s support site.

Two traps in step 4 and 2:

  • My PowerShell script had Korean text in it and was saved without a byte-order mark, so PowerShell read it with the wrong encoding. The script could not find the USB disk, and its safety check stopped it before it erased anything. Saving the script as UTF-8 with BOM fixed it. I’m glad I had the safety check.
  • The Windows setup screen that says “install a driver” only reads .inf files. Lenovo’s download is a .exe. I ran the .exe on my main PC with a silent-extract option, copied the .inf files out, and put them on the USB as Drivers\WiFi_8852CE. Then the button worked, and the laptop could join Wi-Fi during setup. If it still can’t, the E14 has a LAN port, and a cable usually works with the built-in driver.

When the laptop asks for a product key, choose “I don’t have a product key.” You can install and activate later. Not being activated had nothing to do with the NAS problem, by the way. I asked.

Check Before You Blame the Password

For a new laptop that can’t see the NAS, I now use this order. It matches my older rule: check Wi-Fi first.

  1. Is the laptop on the same Wi-Fi as the NAS?
  2. Is the Wi-Fi marked as a private network? A fresh Windows install often marks it public, and a public profile won’t find devices on your network. Settings, Network & internet, Wi-Fi, the network’s properties.
  3. Does Test-NetConnection 192.168.x.x -Port 445 say TcpTestSucceeded : True?
  4. Does the same name and password work on the DSM web page?
  5. Only then: net use.