User permission for Folder – Sharing and Advanced Sharing

windows-server-2008-r2

I have a folder on Windows Server 2008R2 Enterprise machine which I have shared as – SharedName – Resources

There are two options to share this folder –
Share…
Advanced Sharing…

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I chose 'Advanced Sharing…' because I wanted to give a different Share Name.
I also give 'Read+Change' permission to a particular user say, Niki
Then, I click Ok to save those permission under 'Advanced Sharing…'

Now when I click 'Share…', I don't see 'Niki' user.

Questions –

  • Do I need to add 'Niki' user again if I already gave Shared
    permission to this user under Advanced option?
  • 'Share…' dialogue has 'Read/Write' permissions and
    'Advanced Share…' dialogue has 'Read/Change/Full Control' permissions.
    How these two sets of permissions relate to each other?
  • Is it a good idea to give different shared name than actual folder name.?
    I like this but have a feeling that someone looking at this shared name on another server won't have any clue about actual folder name. Any thoughts?

Best Answer

Since it's a server, you should probably stick with Advanced Sharing. Actually you can completely disable Sharing Wizard via Control Panel -> Folder Options -> uncheck Use Sharing Wizard.

Re. permissions, the usual best practice is to manage permissions via NTFS Access Control Lists (Security tab -> Advanced button -> Permissions tab). Between NTFS permissions and sharing permissions the most restrictive takes precedence, whichever it may be. If you have ACLs populated correctly, sharing permissions can be set to Everyone/Full Control for simplicity's sake - it won't matter.

Speaking, of file system permissions, you probably want to grant them to security groups rather than individual users, especially if your server is a part of a domain. In the long run it'll help you to keep track of who can access what.

Finally, sharing a folder under a different name is perfectly OK. The command to list network shares is net share - it outputs share names and folder paths.

To wrap it up, what you really want to do is to get yourself a nice long book like "Mastering Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2" or "Windows Server 2008 R2 Unleashed" which will contain exhaustive answers to most of your basic questions. )

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