Classroom and Lab Computing

Setting Folder Permissions, Windows XP

To view or set folder permissions, from Windows Explorer:

1. Right-click the folder or file you wish to share (note, permissions on your "home" folder are not settable).

2. Click on Properties (last menu item)

3. Click on the Security tab

It is a good idea to create separate folders for each person or group of people that you wish to share files with.

If your XP workstation is standalone or part of a workgroup, the security tab will be hidden. To have it show,
1) Open Windows Explorer
2) Choose Folder Options from the Tools menu
3) On the View tab, scroll to the bottom of the Advanced Settings
4) Clear the check box next to "Use Simple File Sharing."
5) Click OK to apply the change
 

4. Click on the Add button.

Note: don't remove permissions for Administrators or Domain Admins; if you do your files may not be backed up. With thousands of users and millions of files, please do not be concerned that server administrators are going to snoop in your folders.

Also, stay out of the Advanced properties unless you know what you are doing.  It is easy to set things so you can't do anything with that folder again.

5. Enter userids

Just type the userid(s) of the person(s) you want to give access to. Separate userids with semi-colons.

Click here to search for userids by names.

You may enter Domain Users to allow everyone at PSU access.  That's everyone.

6. Set Permissions

Click ok, and check the permissions for the userid(s) you added.  The default will be read access (actually 3 permissions shown here). 

If you want them to be able to write to your folder, check the Modify permission.

Click OK and you are done.

The Deny permissions are not really useful here. You could grant everyone (Domain Users) access and the explicitly exclude someone with Deny permissions, but that would be unusual.


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This page was last modified: 10/7/2003 3:22:29 PM .