Shared FoldersNotes

Shared FoldersNotes

Sharing Files

If the folder you want to share is on an NTFS volume, you must have a minimum NTFS permission of Read for the folder in order to share it.

If you copy a shared folder, the copy is not shared. However, the original shared folder remains shared.

If you move a shared folder, the moved folder is not shared.

Folders can be shared multiple times, each time with a different share name and different shared-folder permissions.

To temporarily prevent all users from accessing a shared folder, stop sharing it. This will immediately disconnect any users who had connected to the folder to access its contents.

You can change the share name of a shared folder without stopping it from being shared first. If you change the actual name of the folder itself, however, it will no longer be shared.

You can also share printers over the network. See Printing earlier in this chapter for more information.

Shared folders and shared printers are often simply called shares in Microsoft parlance.

When you are mapping a network drive, you can connect as a different user if desired. For example, if you are an administrator working at an ordinary user 's desktop machine and you need to access the contents of a share whose permissions are restricted to Administrators, you can connect to the share using your Administrator credentials and the Map Network Drive Wizard.

Keep the share name the same as the folder name to simplify administration of shared folders.

If you add a dollar sign ($) as a suffix to the share name for a shared folder, it becomes a hidden folder that doesn't appear in My Network Places or Windows Explorer. A user can still access the folder, though, if he knows the exact share nameso this method should not be used to secure a shared folder. Use permissions instead to control access to the folder.

To make things easier for users when there are a large number of shared folders on the network, specify a Comment for each shared folder that describes what the folder is used for or what it contains. These comments are visible to users in My Network Places and Windows Explorer.

A good suggestion is to create all shared folders on NTFS volumes . Then leave the shared-folder permissions at their default setting (Full Control for Everyone), and manage folder access using the more granular NTFS permissions. For more information on shared-folder and NTFS permissions and how they combine, see Permissions earlier in this chapter.

There is little reason to create multiple shares for a single folder using New Share. Keep things simple when you are creating and managing shared folders.

If you have shared a folder more than once, an additional option called Remove a Share appears on the Sharing tab of the folder's properties sheet.

Do not stop sharing a folder while users are connected to it, or they may lose their data. Instead, first send a console message to all users connected to the share, indicating that they should save their work. Do this by opening the Computer Management console and selecting System Tools Shared Folders Action Send Console Message.

If you modify the permissions on a shared folder to grant users or groups access to the folder, but users complain that they still don't have the access you promised them, tell them to either:

Log off and then log on again (simplest).
Close all network connections from the client to the server where the share resides (for example, by disconnecting network drives to that machine), and then make new connections to the server.

Other things you can check if this doesn't work include:

Their network connection.
Which groups the user belongs to and the level of access to the resource these groups have.
If the resource is located on an NTFS volume, make sure the user has NTFS permissions explicitly assigned to his user account or to a group to which he belongs.

Note that the information displayed in Shared Folders is not updated automatically. To update the display, use Action Refresh.

If you stop sharing an administrative share, it may disrupt network communications with the server and remote management of the server. If you do stop an administrative share, you should reboot the server to restore the appropriate permissions on the share.

When you create a custom Shared Folders console, you specify in advance which computer this console will manage. You can't switch the focus to a different computer once the console has been created, though you have the option to do this if you launch the console from the command line. If you are using Shared Folders as part of Computer Management, however, you can switch the focus to a different computer using the Action menu.

When you create a custom Shared Folders console, you also have the option of displaying all three subnodes or any single subnode you specify. In this way, for example, you can create a Shared Folders console that displays only the open sessions on the server.

Open Files displays files opened by other users on the network but not files opened by yourself.

A named pipe is a mechanism by which local or remote processes can exchange information. Sessions display administrative connections to remote computers as named pipes, and these sessions can't be closed using Shared Folders (since to do so would interfere with the operation of the Shared Folders console itself).

Offline Files

Offline files let you make any shared files or folders on a Microsoft network available for offline use, provided the computer supports the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol for file sharing. This includes WS2003, W2K, XP, NT 4.0, Windows 98, and Windows 95 computers, but doesn't include Novell NetWare servers.

You can make shared folders, specific files within shared folders, or mapped network drives available for offline use on WS2003 clients .

Heavy use of offline files can slow down the logon and logoff process for users. Enable this feature only when needed, such as for laptop computers or when the network connection is unreliable.

To enable and configure offline files on the server, you need to be an administrator.

If a shortcut to a file is made available offline, you will be able to access that file offline. If a shortcut to a folder is made available offline, however, you will not be able to access the contents of that folder offline. To make the contents of a folder available offline, make the folder itself available offline.

To make a single file within a shared folder available offline, make the file available offline, and then create a shortcut to the file so you can access it even though you can't access the shared folder itself.

Shared folders made available offline on the server and configured for automatic caching are displayed as network folder icons within My Network Places on client computers once the client connects to them for the first time.

Offline files can also be managed centrally using Group Policy. Open the GPO linked to the OU containing the computers on which you want to enable and configure offline files, select Computer Configuration Administrative Templates Network Offline Files, and configure the policies as desired.

Shadow Copies

A maximum of 64 shadow copies can be stored per volume. When this is exceeded, the oldest copies are deleted.

Shadow copies are read-only and can't be modified, but if you copy a shadow copy you can modify the copy!

When you restore a file from a shadow copy, its permissions are the same as they were originally.

Don't use shadow copies as a replacement for normal backups of your file server.

Choose a separate volume on a different disk drive as the storage area for your shadow copies.

Administrative Shares

You should not stop sharing or otherwise modify these administrative shares. If you do stop sharing one, it will be reshared when you reboot your system or when the Server service is restarted.

If you are an administrator, you can quickly display and access the contents of any drive (for example, the C : drive) on a remote machine (for example, Server9 ) by Start Run \\Server9\C$ OK.

In WS2003, the %SystemRoot% folder is named Windows by default. This has changed since W2K and NT, on which this folder was named Winnt by default.

Sharing Files

Offline Files

Shadow Copies

Administrative Shares

See Also