Even though it is the current model, the GF10 was released in 2018, so there will no longer be many articles about this story on the internet. Even though it is outdated, this is another small story that I felt I really had to write about this for the sake of the world and others.
As compensation for the hard work that took up a few precious hours of my weekend, I’d feel bad if I didn’t make it into at least one blog post (lol).
As mentioned in the brochures and other materials, it was easy to fly the image data to my phone or tablet via wifi using an app called Image App.
In my case, however, the destination I want to fly is not my smartphone, but I want to move the heavy RAW data to a PC where I can develop and edit it in order to process the image data. Since the recording device of the camera itself is a micro SD, I want to avoid physical removal and insertion, and I am concerned about the robustness of the slot on the camera side for wired connection with a USB cable, so I want to use wifi to send the data to the PC if possible.
The GF10 has a wifi function, but it took me a few hours of struggle to get it to work. Here is how it went.
The first step: to set a specific folder on the PC to be shared. I borrowed some wisdom from the Internet, but the key is to tweak the permissions in the “Advanced Sharing” section of the properties of the folder you want. Cleared without much trouble.
The second step: Picking up the signal from the home wifi router and connecting it to the network. This was cleared right away. However, the monitor on the camera side just says “connecting” or “searching,” so it is hard to tell if it is connected or not.
The third step: After connecting to the network, you must specify the name of the PC with which you want to share data by entering it directly. It took a bit of time to check the “name representing the PC on the network” in the Windows 10 control panel, but this was also cleared.
The forth step: Entering the Windows 10 user name and password to get into the PC. This was the first doozy. No matter how many times I try, it says “username or password is wrong”. No matter how many times I try to enter what should be correct.
That can’t be right! and raising my blood pressure doesn’t help at all, so I have no choice but to change the network sharing settings and lower the security level so that password authentication is not required, and skip the barrier once.
The fifth and final step. When I finally got inside the PC, I got stuck for the second fatal time. You are bounced back and forth for hours with a “shared folder not found” message.
I was neck and neck with the manual, looked all over the internet for how-tos, and did a lot of lot of things. I temporarily removed the firewall, I fiddled with network settings, I even fiddled with the registry to make it easier to log in as a user from the outside. No matter what I did, nothing worked.
I gave up once, went out to run some errands, tried again, gave up again, had my dinner, then tried again, almost gave up again. I happened to find a curious clause in a corner of the FAQ on the official Panasonic website that I had missed before: “Windows 10 always logs you in with a local account.”
That’s it!
If there is such a requirement, you should be the first to write it!
Two types of accounts can be used for Windows 10 login: local account and Microsoft account, and I, who use MS365 on multiple devices, use the latter regularly as a matter of course. This time, it seems to be a lose-lose situation.
I created a local account for this purpose, which I don’t usually use, and logged in. EVERYTHING went well this time. And I was able to restore the skips and security level drops I had made.
By the way, it seems that once cleared and the settings connected to the camera with a local account are saved, the connection can be established without any problem even if the PC is changed back to a Microsoft account. I’m glad to hear that I don’t have to change my PC working environment in the end.
I don’t know whether this outcome will be of any use at all in the world or miraculously help someone somewhere, but everyone, When you connect your LUMIX GF10 to your PC via wifi, Windows 10 logs in with a local account. .
Ah, that’s all I wanted to write. I feel a bit relieved:-)
