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Sharing Files

Windows file sharing allows users to make folders on one computer accessible to other devices on the same network by configuring share permissions and NTFS permissions. This content covers the end-to-end process of creating a shared folder, setting access controls, and connecting to the share from another machine using a UNC path.

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About this video

Windows file sharing is a core networking capability that allows a folder on one machine to be accessed by other devices on the same local network. The setup process begins in File Explorer, where a folder is created and then configured through its Properties menu under the Sharing tab. During configuration, an administrator selects which users or groups will have access and assigns a permission level, such as read or read/write. Windows applies two distinct layers of access control to shared folders: share permissions, which govern access over the network, and NTFS permissions, which control access at the file system level. The effective access a user receives is determined by the more restrictive of the two permission sets, making it a common practice to set share permissions broadly and manage granular access through NTFS permissions alone. Once a share is created, connecting to it from another machine requires knowing either the host computer's name or IP address, which can be retrieved using the ipconfig command. From a remote machine, the share is accessed by entering a UNC path in the format \\IPAddress\ShareName through the Run dialog or File Explorer. If the host machine requires authentication, valid credentials for a user account on that system must be provided. After a successful connection, users can read, create, or modify files within the shared folder according to the permissions granted to their account. This workflow demonstrates how network file sharing operates in a Windows environment and illustrates the importance of correctly configuring both layers of permissions to control access to sensitive resources.

What you'll learn

What's covered

Sharing Files on a Network

Aligned to

CompTIA A+ Core 2
1.6 Given a scenario, configure Microsoft Windows networking on a client desktop.
2.5 Given a scenario, manage and configure basic security settings in the Microsoft Windows OS.
4.9 Given a scenario, use remote access technologies.
CompTIA Server+
3.3 Given a scenario, implement group policies and access controls.
2.3 Given a scenario, configure and maintain server functions and features.
CompTIA A+ Core 1
2.4 Summarize services provided by networked hosts.

Key terms

NTFS Permissions
Access control settings applied to files and folders on Windows NTFS-formatted drives that define which users or groups can read, write, execute, or modify them. NTFS permissions are preserved when files are moved within the same volume but are reset when copied.
Share Permissions
Network-level access controls applied to a shared folder in Windows that define the maximum level of access remote users can have when connecting over the network.
Access Control List
ACL
A set of rules that defines which users or systems are granted or denied access to a resource.
Authentication
The process of verifying the identity of a user, device, or system.
Authorization
The process of determining what actions or resources an authenticated user is permitted to access.
Least Privilege
A security principle that grants users and systems only the minimum access rights needed to perform their functions.
UNC Path
Universal Naming Convention path — a standard format for identifying shared network resources using the syntax \\servername\sharename, used to access file shares from a remote machine.

Topics

Windows File Sharing Ntfs Permissions Share Permissions Unc Path Network Access Control Windows Server Operating Systems

Transcript

There are times we want to share out files and folders to other devices on our network. Here we have a home network. It consists of a router and a switch and several devices that are on this network. Let's say we have a machine that has some files and folders on it and we want to share that out to other devices on this network. What we can do is set up a share on this machine and give access to other machines, so they can have access to those files and folders.

Creating the Share

I'm on my demo machine, and what I'm going to do is create a folder that I'm going to share out. I'm going to open up File Explorer, and with File Explorer open I'm going to create this share on the E drive. So I've selected the E drive, I'm going to right-click on here and say new and create a new folder, and let's just give this a name. We're going to call this — how about file share. So we'll call it file share.

I'm going to right-click on this, we're going to go to properties, and there's this sharing tab. So I'm going to click the sharing tab, and there's this share button here, so I'm going to click on share. Now this is a way that we can start sharing out this folder.

Share Permissions and NTFS Permissions

The first thing I need to do is select who I am going to share this to. For instance, we have the demo user, which is marked as the owner, permission level owner on here. I'm going to do everyone, and the reason why I'm going to do everyone is that there are actually two sets of permissions on here. There's this share permission right here, and then there are the NTFS permissions. What I want to do in this case is just manage everything through the NTFS permissions, and so to do that I can add everyone to here and give them the read/write control here, so that they have access to read and write. That's everyone, but this doesn't necessarily give everyone access to this folder, because it's going to work with both the share permissions and also the NTFS permissions.

So I'm just going to click on share, and now it's only going to be access to those who have access to this folder. It says the folder is shared. I'm going to click on done, and here's where the NTFS permissions are at. On the NTFS permissions you can see that everyone does have full control on here, so I can actually change that if I want to, and then the demo user has full control on this as well. The demo user is the one that I'm going to log in as. So this is where we can control this and give access to only specific users and have a lot more granular control with it.

Looking Up the Address and the Account

Let's log in as demo user. There are a couple of things I need to look up now for this. In order to access this share, one of them is either the computer name or the IP address. To keep it simple I'm just going to use the IP address. To look up the IP address of this machine, I'm going to bring up a command prompt, and I'm going to type in ipconfig, and we'll take a look and see what's assigned to it. So, 192.168 4291. We'll have to remember that.

Then we'll also see the demo user here. We need to see what account that is, what the user account is for that. So I'm going to type in here computer management and I'll hit enter, and here again I can access different areas. I can access the users on this machine, but this is the one I like to go to. I'm going to open up the demo user, and under demo user I can see the full name, the profile — I can find out different information with this. If I need to reset this account, I can do that. So here's the account that I'm going to use, the demo user.

Connecting from Another Machine

I jumped on another machine. This happens to be a Windows Server, so I jumped on this Windows Server, and let's see how we can gain access to that network share. There are actually several different ways I could do this. I'm going to open up a run, so I'm going to hit the start and type in run and hit enter, and this is my favorite way of typing it in.

What I'll do is type in backslash backslash and then the machine name, or in this case we're going to use an IP address just to make it simple, so 192.168 4291 is the one that we took a look at. Then I'm going to hit backslash and then I can type in the name of the share, or we're just going to hit okay for now and see what pops up here.

It's asking for credentials here, and this is where I'm going to type in my demo user, and then for the password I'm going to type in the password for that, and I'm going to click on okay. With this it opens up, and now I see my two shares. I've got this test share that I must have created earlier, and then I've got this file share in here.

What I'm going to do is open up this file share, and we're going to give it a test run by creating a text document. We'll say hello, how about that, and hit enter. We'll even open it up and just say "this is a test document", and we'll save that, so file, save.

Let's jump on the other machine now and take a look and see what it looks like. I'm back on the other machine, so I'm going to open up this file share in here, and you can see the hello text here. I open it up and I can see this is a test document. So there it is.

What we've done is we've shared out this folder, and now everyone has access to this folder to drop files into it, or to access any files and folders shared out — all these different files.

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