Unable to Hide Shared Folders

Question

_{Wednesday, April 25, 2012 1:29 PM}

Hello, I have Windows server 2003 R2 SP2 Installed in my Environment and I have promoted it as a File Server. I have created some share folders and given access to the respected Users & Groups. Everything related to access is working fine but when the Users try to access the shared folder Location (E.g.: \Servername\) they can see the list of shared folders, although they don’t have the access to use other shared folders and while accessing other folders the Users get Access is Denied. The problem is that I want to hide all the Shared folders so that only the person who has the access to the respected folders can see his folder. I found an Article called ABE (Access Based Enumeration), so I have downloaded that tool and deployed in my environment and have enabled the ABE on a particular folder but still all the Users are able to View those list of shared folders. Kindly need your help in solving this problem.

All replies (7)

_{Thursday, April 26, 2012 12:58 PM ✅Answered}

I will reiterate, ABE works great for the files and folders in a share, but it will not hide the share itself from a users view.  Just to clarify, if you share two folders, each folder has different NTFS permissions, which is what ABE looks at, no matter what the permissions are, if you go to the UNC path of a server to see what shares are available (\ServerName), you will still be able to see all unhidden shares.  ABE only takes effect once you have opened a share to work with the files and folders within.

_{Wednesday, April 25, 2012 1:56 PM}

You cannot do that at the share level, only at the folder level under the share (utilizing access based enumeration).  The only way to hide a share is to use a $ after the name which will hide the share completely from everyones view.

_{Thursday, April 26, 2012 7:15 AM}

Hi,

Have you enabled ABE on all existing shared folders on your computer? If not, try it.

Check “Effective Permission” for your restrict users on the share folder.

To view effective permissions on files and folders

1. Open Windows      Explorer, and then locate the file or folder for which you want to view      effective permissions.
2. Right-click      the file or folder, click Properties, and then click the Security tab.
3. Click Advanced,      click the Effective Permissions tab, and then click Select.
4. In Enter the      object name to select (examples), enter the name of a user or group, and      then click OK. The selected check boxes indicate the effective permissions      of the user or group for that file or folder.

Re-apply security throughout the entire share folder tree may resolve this issue. Some customers have similar issue, and fix the issue through this way.

For more information please refer to following MS articles:

Access-based Enumeration
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd772681(v=WS.10).aspx
View Effective Permissions on Files and Folders
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc771586.aspx
Access Based Enumeration Not Working as Expected
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserverfiles/thread/1a14dc82-aacb-4705-be3e-cb0e55060b91

Lawrence

TechNet Community Support

_{Thursday, April 26, 2012 7:38 AM}

Hi,

You need to enable Access based enumeration to achieve this. It was also included in Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1.

Access-based enumeration displays only the files and folders that a user has permissions to access. If a user does not have Read (or equivalent) permissions for a folder, Windows hides the folder from the user’s view. This feature is active only when viewing files and folders in a shared folder; it is not active when viewing files and folders in the local file system.

Access-based Enumeration
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd772681(v=WS.10).aspx

Regards,
Rafic

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_{Thursday, April 26, 2012 1:30 PM}

I thing Russ is Right..It will not work even if you implement ABE.

Sunil Pathare System Admin Idealake Information Technologies Pvt.Ltd. www.idealake.com Email:- [email protected]

_{Tuesday, May 8, 2012 9:23 AM}

Hello Russ / Sunil, Thanks a lot for your help and support. I know that we can Hide the Folder by putting a $ sign at the end of the folder name but I was finding some other way out. Well about ABE I didn’t knew that it will get applied from the Parent to the Child Folder, so I have done the testing and it is working fine.

Masterman_777

_{Sunday, June 9, 2013 7:32 AM}

Hi masterman ,,

how u did ..? can u pls explain step by step as i too need to hide the shared folder for soem users ..plsss..

Thanks

Arun