File and sharing windows vista

Like Windows XP, Windows Vista is also designed to support multiple users. As such, Vista uses a user profile folder structure that is similar to the one used within Windows XP. There are a few differences that you will notice right off the bat though. For example, the Documents and Settings folder has been renamed to Users. The naming convention for the individual profile folders remains the same, but the structure of the profile itself has changed to reflect Vista’s ability to better index various file types. Figure C shows what a Vista profile folder looks like in comparison to the Windows XP version, shown in Figure B.

Figure C: This is what a profile folder looks like in Windows Vista

What I really want to show you though is the contents of the Users folder, shown in Figure D. Notice any differences from Figure A? Both Windows XP and Windows Vista have folders for each user profile. However, Vista also includes a Public folder.

Figure D: In addition to the user profile folders, Vista includes a Public folder

The Public folder is designed specifically for file sharing. If a user needs to share a document with others in the organization, they can place that document into the Public folder on their machine. That way users can collaborate on documents without having to actually create shares on their workstations.

Earlier, I mentioned that the new file and print sharing mechanism doesn’t completely throw security out the window. The truth is that the administrator always has control over whether sharing is allowed or not. If you do decide to allow sharing though, you are somewhat at the mercy of the user as far as security is concerned.

To understand what I am talking about, you will need to see the dialog box that allows file and print sharing to be configured. Windows Vista is still in beta testing, so anything can change. For now though, you can access the file and print sharing settings by opening the Control Panel and clicking on the Network and Internet link, followed by the File and Print Sharing link. When you do, you will see the dialog box that’s shown in Figure E.

Figure E: This is Vista’s File and Print Sharing dialog box

The dialog box shown in Figure E allows you to control the behavior of file and print sharing for the machine. On a larger scale, you would probably want to control these settings via a group policy, but I wanted to show you this dialog box so that you could get a better feel for how the process works.

The first thing that you will probably notice on the dialog box is that it allows you to share your printer. Printer sharing works pretty much the same way that it did in Windows XP, so I don’t want to waste too much time talking about that. Vista’s file sharing capabilities are much more interesting.

I don’t have any documentation on Vista yet, but from what I have been able to observe, users are allowed to share any folder that they have rights to. However, the only folder that the users have full control over by default is their profile folder. This means that a user could share their profile folder, or a sub folder within the profile folder using basically the same method that they used in Windows XP.

As an administrator though, I don’t really like the idea of users sharing some or all of their profile folder. A responsible user may only share a folder containing documents for collaboration, but it is just too easy for a user to share the whole thing. As I already mentioned, a profile folder contains user specific configuration data, which tends to be very sensitive. That being the case, you have the option of either allowing or disallowing users to share their profile folders. Notice in Figure E that the Don’t Allow People Using This Computer To Share Out Their User Account Folder option is selected by default.

So what about the Public folder that I mentioned earlier? Well, if you take a look at Figure E, you will notice that just below the option to share printers, there is a check box that you can enable if you want to share the contents of the machine’s Public folder. Just beneath this check box are two radio buttons that you can use to control network access rights to the folder. This brings up an interesting point about the Public folder. The rights that you apply here apply throughout the Public folder by default. Users can however create sub folders beneath the Public folder and set network access rights to those folders individually.

The last thing that I want to point out is the two links at the bottom of the File and Printer Sharing dialog box. These links allow you to see at a glance which files on the machine are being shared and what shares exist on the machine. I love this feature because it takes the guess work out of working with network shares.