COPYING AND MOVING FOLDERS TO CREATE A FOLDER WHILE LOGGED ON AS A USE...

9-3Lesson 1 Introduction to Shared Folders

missions. To enable or disable Simple File Sharing, in any open folder, click Tools and

then click Folder Options. In the Folder Options dialog box, on the View tab, in the

Advanced Settings list, select or clear the Use Simple File Sharing (Recommended)

check box.

Note The remainder of this chapter assumes that you are not using Simple File Sharing.

Shared Folder Permissions

When Simple File Sharing is disabled, you can control how users gain access to a

shared folder by assigning shared folder permissions. Shared folder permissions are

simpler than NTFS permissions. Table 9-1 explains what each of the shared folder per-

missions allows a user to do, presented from most restrictive to least restrictive.

Table 9-1

Shared Folder Permissions

This Shared Folder

Permission Allows the User to

Read Display folder names, file names, file data, and attributes; run program

files; and change folders within the shared folder

Change Create folders, add files to folders, change data in files, append data to

files, change file attributes, and delete folders and files; also allows the

user to perform actions that are permitted by the Read permission

Full Control Change file permissions, take ownership of files, and perform all tasks

that are permitted by the Change permission

You grant or deny shared folder permissions. Generally, it is best to grant permissions

to a group rather than to individual users. You should deny permissions only when it

is necessary to override permissions that are otherwise applied, for example, when it

is necessary to deny permission to a specific user who belongs to a group to which you

have granted the permission. If you deny a shared folder permission to a user, the user

will not have that permission. For example, to deny all remote access to a shared

folder, deny the Full Control permission.

Requirements for Sharing a Folder

To create shared folders on a computer running Windows XP Professional, you must

be a member of the Administrators or Power Users groups. Also, users who are granted

the Create Permanent Shared Objects user right are allowed to share folders. You can

share only folders; you cannot share individual files. If you need to provide users net-

work access to files, you must share the folder that contains the files.

!

Exam Tip Users of the Administrators or Power Users groups can share a folder. Users

who have been assigned the Create Permanent Shared Objects user right can also share

folders.

Characteristics of Shared Folder Permissions

You can share any folder on a computer so that network users can access the folder.

The following are characteristics of shared folder permissions:

■

Shared folder permissions apply to folders, not individual files. Because you can

apply shared folder permissions only to the entire shared folder and not to indi-

vidual files or subfolders in the shared folder, shared folder permissions provide

less detailed security than NTFS permissions.

■

Shared folder permissions do not restrict users who access the folder locally by

logging on to the computer. They apply only to users who connect to the folder

over the network.

■

Shared folder permissions are the only way to secure network resources on a FAT

volume, because NTFS permissions are not available on FAT volumes.

■

The default shared folder permission is Read, and it is assigned to the Everyone

group when you share the folder.

Security Alert If you share a folder and do not change the default shared folder permis-

sions (where the Everyone group is assigned the Read permission), the shared folder is effec-

tively not protected from people reading the contents of the folder across the network. In this

case, restriction from reading the folder depends entirely on local NTFS permissions.

How to Share a Folder

When you share a folder, you can give it a share name, provide comments to describe

the folder and its content, control the number of users who have access to the folder,

assign permissions, and create multiple share names for the folder.

To share a folder, complete the following steps: