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Friday, March 09, 2007

Windows XP Sharing & Security Permissions

Windows XP. Everyone was excited when it came out but there are a couple of things that are perplexing. When you run a few computers on a network and you run Windows XP on all these machines, the sharing and permissions folders get confused and suddenly one or more of the computers decides that you don't own your own computer so you can't access your own files. Or anyone else's files for that matter. This has happened not once, not twice, but over 30 times, possibly more - I think I've lost count.

These are my fixes to get it to work again:

Sharing & Security Checklist:

* Share this folder / file
* Permissions - Everyone - Full control (3 ticks)

* Security Tab
* Advanced
* Owner Tab
* Change owner - Administrator
* Change owner (Insert your owner's name here eg. JSmith)
* Tick "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects" both times
* OK

* Back to Security
* If no names are shown, add "Administrator"
* Apply
* All other users should appear again (if they had disappeared, which they often do!)
* Make sure administrator, users etc. have full permission

* Permissions
* Tick "Inherit from parent the permission entries that apply to child objects. Include these with entries explicitly defined here"
* Tick "Replace permission entries on all child objects with entries shown here that apply to child objects"
* Apply (may take a minute)

Pray


However, I have done this series in the checklist and the permissions have a mind of their own. They can revert back overnight when you are not looking. We got our computer guy in to fix it and he did exactly the steps I followed above. I know because I watched him the whole time. And wouldn't you know, the permissions reverted back (or should I say REGRESSED) as soon as he left the building. Windows 98 made a lot more sense when it came to networking. Perhaps in the long run, Windows XP will show itself to be a Windows 97. Hopefully there will be some updates / fixes soon.

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1 comment:

  1. You have tried some good steps on this issue and have a great mind for helping others with what you learned.. But sorry to say that You still wanna understand XP a little more to rule it., so that u won't say "the permissions have a mind of their own". We are the boss and no computer is boss for us..
    Great works on this Blog..

    ReplyDelete

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