Hi akusoft. I don't believe Windows XP (Pro or Embedded) supports the
scenario you mentioned. The old style of sharing in Win9x has been
superceded by the more secure form of sharing present in Win2K and WinXP,
which means that if you want to restrict access to a shared folder, you need
to specify an account that is allowed to view that folder.
This is dependent on which file system you're using, as well as whether the
machine is on a domain or in a workgroup. I'll address each point here:
Secure file sharing is (I believe) only possible in NTFS, because NTFS can
store security descriptor information on every file and folder, whereas FAT
has no such facility. To accomplish what you want to do here, I recommend
you use NTFS.
As for workgroup/domain: You can share a folder in NTFS and then modify the
permissions to that folder such that only a specific account has access to
it. In a workgroup situation, you would want to set up a special account
(or use an existing one) that has exclusive access to that folder (remove
the "Everyone" permission, or set "Everyone" to whatever permissions you
wish, such as Read Only). Make sure that account has a password. Then
someone attempting to access that folder will need to enter both the
username and password of the appropriate account in order to access it.
In a domain situation, you don't necessarily need to set up a local account
on the machine with the shared folder. In that case, you can specify which
domain accounts you want to have access the machine, and the domain
controller/authenticator will take care of verifying user accounts. You can
still use a local account if you wish, however. In any case, someone who is
not a member of the "allowed" group will either be automatically denied or
will be prompted to enter an allowed account name.
Another possible solution is to find a third-party solution that can
simplify the file sharing process, but Microsoft makes no guarantees as to
the safety or security of such a solution and cannot offer support in that
case.
I hope this helps. Please let us know if you have any more questions. =)
--
Matt Kellner (
[email protected])
STE, Windows Embedded Group
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
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