Password Protecting Network Drives


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Hey guys, I have a home network consisting of 9 wireless networked computers, all of which are running either windows XP home or pro. i have 4 network drives which i store itunes, mp3s and such to. Is there a way to add user names and passwords to these network drives? i have googled it and all ive found is the same lousy program that puts a password on files. Ex. of what im talking about, I have a laptop and when i open up mycomputer i click on the network drive (m:) then it naturally opens... what i want is when i click on that drive i want it to pop up with an authentication window asking for a user name and password to access this drive. kinda like when you type in 192.168.X.X in a web browser to config a linksys router and it asks for a user name and the default is admin and password is admin... exactly like how that works. I want to do this without buying anything such as novell windows server ect. is there a way to do this through XP pro? i am willing to try anything that is free to download or if windows has incorpertated a feature that would be awsome to know about. thanks a lot. also im open to running linux on my server if thats what it takes. thanks

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Turn off simple file sharing. From a folder view -- tools-> folder options -> view tab -> uncheck simple file sharing (it's at the very bottom).

Now r.click a shared folder, select sharing and then the permissions button.

This will only work on the profession versions of Windows OS (Win 2000 Pro, WinXP Pro, Win 2000 Server, Win 2003 Server) and on a NTFS volume. Win XP Home is forced to use simple file sharing so it will not work on XP Home.

Edited by CataclysmCow
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What I do on my system is disable Simple File Sharing, then I just use the default hidden administrative shares (c$, k$, etc). This way I don't need to go in and set up any permissions at all, because it automatically asks for the Administrator's username and password in this situation.

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