sharing drives in windows 2000

[bezaman]

I'm running Windows 2000 professional. I want to share my C:\ drive. When I go to another PC on the network and attempt to connect to my C:\ drive it keeps asking me for a password. I don't know what the password is. How do I find out what the password is and is there a way to turn off the password option?

[JCScoobyRS]

The way Windows 2000 works is all shares and files in the share have security and permissions. You Right-Click the share, from the sharing computer and not the client, and select properties. Click the Security Tab to see who all has access to the share. You can add/remove people from the list but make sure that you know the password of one of them so you can access it later. HTH, Jeremy

[bezaman]

When check the security tab it says that Everyone has full access permissions. It doesn't say anything about a password.

[JCScoobyRS]

Woops...I left out a step. You have to right click the share and then click "Sharing". Once in the Sharing Tab...click Permissions and follow the instructions from first post. HTH, Jeremy

[bezaman]

I get an error that says:
This has been shared for administrative purposes. The permissions cannot be set.

[JCScoobyRS]

Okay. That means that you are trying to view a drive/folder shared for "administrative purposes"! LOL Reason being is that when an administrative share is shared, it has the default of only the administrator getting to it and you access it like this:

\\machinename\sharename$

Notice the "$". This means it's an administrative share and is hidden. Here is a working example:

\\jcscoobyrs\C$

This will access the C$ share on jcscoobyrs. With all this being said...the username and password are the same as the local administrator account for the machine that has the share. Does this make sense? Give it a try and let me know, Jeremy

[bezaman]

So the password would be the same as the password I use to log onto my computer? If it is, it doesn't work. Is there a way to have the share not ask for a password?

[JCScoobyRS]

Yes but I wouldn't do that for administrative shares like your C drive. All you have to do is create a share. All default shares allow everyone access without passwords. If you do want to change your administrative share to a regular share, all you have to do is take the $ sign off of the share name in the Share Properties. Then make sure that the share permissions are set to Everyone Full Control. HTH, Jeremy

[parksie]

Having a full drive shared with no password is a very stupid thing to do. And I mean, stupid on a scale with jumping off a tall building because you don't want to wait for the lift.

[JCScoobyRS]

Yup...that's why the administrative share was created. It's very protected but still accessible...if done right. Later, Jeremy

[bezaman]

How do I figure out what my local administrator password is?

[JCScoobyRS]

Is this your computer? If so...you set it up during Windows installation. If not...ask the person that set it up for you. Later, Jeremy

[bezaman]

I set it up. Everytime I try the password it says it is incorrect.

[alphanumeric]

I agree with parksie, sharing your whole c; drive is asking for trouble. I would just share a folder. Give permission to the user accounts on that PC and create duplicate user accounts on the other PC. You won't get asked for a password to use the shared folder. If you want that much control maybe you should use something like VNC. I run it on my two PC's on my LAN. If I want a file that's not in the shared folder I open a remote desktop and drag and drop the file in the folder on the other PC using my virtual desktop. I can run a virus scan, run ad-aware, or defrage the harddrive on one pc from the other remotely. You should have seen my Daughters face the first time I started opening the start menu on her machine while she was sitting there.

[JCScoobyRS]

Are you connected to a domain or a workstation?

[alphanumeric]

Try this, go to "Users and Passwords" in control panel and put a check mark in the BOX for "Users must Enter A Username and password to use this PC". Then enter a password for the admin account. I would also create another account with admin privileges and use that account instead or logging on as admin all the time. It gives you an out if you user account gets hosed.