Can't Share an Entire Drive

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  1. Posts : 132
    windows 10
       #1

    Can't Share an Entire Drive


    I have a small home network. I do not use HomeGroup.
    I can happily share folders, but I can not share an entire drive.
    Whenever I do that, and set access permissions, the drive appears on the network, but nothing can access it.
    It always just says that I do not have access, please ask admin.
    I am unable to share any of the drives on any of my PC's despite being able to share the individual folders on those drives.
    The error message is identical to the one if you haven't set up access rights. Problem is, I have.
    I have tried this on several computers on the network and always the same problem.
    Does anyone know what could be wrong?
    Last edited by davefaz; 28 Mar 2018 at 03:35.
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  2. Posts : 15,426
    Windows10
       #2

    davefaz said:
    I have a small home network. I do not use HomeGroup.
    I can happily share folders, but I can not share an entire drive.
    Whenever I do that, and set access permissions, the drive appears on the network, but nothing can access it.
    It always just says that I do not have access, please ask admin.
    I am unable to share any of the drives on any of my PC's despite being able to share the individual folders on those drives.
    The error message is identical to the one if you haven't set up access rights. Problem is, I have.
    I have tried this on several computers on the network and always the same problem.
    Does anyone know what could be wrong?
    Google is still your friend

    How to Share an Entire Drive in Windows 10 - Quehow
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  3. Posts : 132
    windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #3

    cereberus said:
    I have done all that, it doesn't work on any of my PC's. I can see the drive, but can not access it. I have tried with different drives on different PC's, it's a common problem! There must be an issue with "Everyone" but I don't know what. As I said, the really crazy thing is that if I create a folder on the drive then I can happily share that. Just not the entire drive. I remember having this issue with Win 10 before on the network, and just giving up. This, however, is a new PC and I really want to share the entire drive.
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  4. Posts : 15,426
    Windows10
       #4

    davefaz said:
    I have done all that, it doesn't work on any of my PC's. I can see the drive, but can not access it. I have tried with different drives on different PC's, it's a common problem! There must be an issue with "Everyone" but I don't know what.
    Each pcs connection needs to be set to private not public.
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  5. Posts : 132
    windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #5

    cereberus said:
    Each pcs connection needs to be set to private not public.
    It is a private network.

    I may be forced to just create a folder on the drive and place all the things I want available on the network in that folder. I have tried that and it works. It just seems crazy that I can share folders on the drive but not the drive itself.

    Thank you for you help, by the way.

    Incidentally I first noticed this issue when Win10 first came out. I used to share optical drives over the network but it stopped working with Win10. I also had some shared HDD's on a PC, that stopped working too. At the time I just ignored the problem and for the HDD's I created folders to share instead of drives. Since then I have added new PC's and found exactly the same issue with the new PC's as well as with the old ones. I thought at first that it may be the user "Everyone", but I have tried "Users" too.
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  6. Posts : 132
    windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #6

    I think the problem may be the default permissions on the drive itself.
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  7. Posts : 132
    windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #7

    Yep found it. The sharing of the drive sets the permissions for "Everyone" in sharing, but the root drive doesn't have "Everyone" included in it's security settings, so there is a conflict. I had to add an "Everyone" to the drive root settings and bingo - suddenly the sharing worked.

    I find it interesting that the drive doesn't have an "Everyone" setting. Can anyone tell me if there is a negative aspect to setting this? There must be a reason why "Everyone" is missing from the default security settings of a drive.
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  8. Posts : 15,426
    Windows10
       #8

    davefaz said:
    Yep found it. The sharing of the drive sets the permissions for "Everyone" in sharing, but the root drive doesn't have "Everyone" included in it's security settings, so there is a conflict. I had to add an "Everyone" to the drive root settings and bingo - suddenly the sharing worked.

    I find it interesting that the drive doesn't have an "Everyone" setting. Can anyone tell me if there is a negative aspect to setting this? There must be a reason why "Everyone" is missing from the default security settings of a drive.
    In part, it is to reduce risk of malware getting hold of drive. Malware often tries to install folders on a drive so it can do its insidious business.

    Also, it is basically just not good security practice to expose whole of drive to other pcs. Of course, it is for you to assess how much you trust other pc users.
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  9. Posts : 8,049
    windows 10
       #9

    By default c drive has a share c$ as do most drives if you try to set another share there will be conflict. You connect to c$ as admin on that PC. Evan as admins some folders you don't have access to like other users profile. Giving everyone rights on c is suicide as any back then has full rights on the PC
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  10. Posts : 5,478
    2004
       #10

    I think it started with Vista - even if you are an administrator you connect with standard user credentials. By default the root of drives grants administrators group full access and users only read.

    You can change this (and so bypass UAC by connecting using administrators group authority) by setting LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy registry key to "1" as described here https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...ons-in-windows
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