So I have two home PCs running windows XP. I want to copy some files from one to the other. I go to the first one and share one of its folders. I go to the second one, and go to “my network places” and see the shared folder and everything in its root. But when I try to go into a subfolder, it says I don’t have access. I can’t find an option for “recursively apply this sharing” or anything of that sort.
Can anyone advise me?
Thanks.
Go to My Computer - Tools - Folder Options - View (tab) and un-check “use simple file sharing (recommended)”.
Then, go to your folder that you want to share, right-click “Properties” then the “Security” tab. From there you can add the user called “EVERYONE” and give that account full control. Click the “Advanced” button at the bottom of the window to apply perms to all child folders.
Of course, you may want to re-visit this later and shore up users and groups on your network so as not to actually give “EVERYONE” access to this folder forever…but for quick purposes, that will work.
Do you have to have XP Pro, and not XP Home, to turn off simple file sharing? Or has one of the service packs changed that?
Windows operates with two levels of security: share level security and file level security. On the first PC, the one which is sharing the folders, browse to the shared folder in Explorer, right-click and select Properties, then click on the Security tab. You will then see what security is applied at the file level. You will probably want to add the users of your second PC to the list. When you add them, explicitly refer to them with the machine name - Second Machine\Users. Then give them the permissions you require. Note that permissions are additive apart from No Access which overrides all. Subfolders typically inherit the permissions of their parent folder but you can force the issue.
NB Best practice is to go into Users & Groups in Computer Management and create a group (called a local group) there, to which you add groups and users from other computers. You then grant that local group access as above.
This all sounds a bit of a palaver, but it’s quite easy.