Sharing Folders

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kay C
  • Start date Start date
K

Kay C

I am trying to share Program files on my home network
which is a simple crossover cable and 2 NIC cards, with
Win XP Pro.

However when I try to share a folder such as Program
Files on either PC, the check box to share the folder is
greyed out and will not allow me to select them.

So how and is it possible to share a folder such as
Program Files.

Thanks in Advance
Kay C.
 
Kay C said:
I am trying to share Program files on my home network
which is a simple crossover cable and 2 NIC cards, with
Win XP Pro.

However when I try to share a folder such as Program
Files on either PC, the check box to share the folder is
greyed out and will not allow me to select them.

So how and is it possible to share a folder such as
Program Files.

Thanks in Advance
Kay C.
Click to expand...


This is the default behaviour of Simple File Sharing
when used to share an NTFS drive.

Essentially, it's trying to protect users from themselves.
People often follow bad practice of sharing entire drives, etc.
So Simple File Sharing blocks the sharing on certain folders.
Typically, there's not much reason to share those folders.

What Simple File Sharing has done is to set the NTFS
permissions on those folders to block 'Guest' network access.

Note that you can, however, share sub-folders of these.

Other possible workarounds:

1) On XP Pro, disable simple file sharing, and then explicitly set up the
permissions.

2) On XP Home, you can't do this. So there are a couple of possible kludges:

2.1) Reformat the drive as FAT, and re-install.
This is an ugly solution.

2.2) Boot to Safe mode, which allows access to the NTFS permissions.
Re-set the NTFS permissions to include Everyone.
Re-boot to normal mode.
Note that subsequent changes to the shares with Simple File Sharing
will reset the restricted permissions, requiring you to re-do this.
 
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