User's Documents revealed

[Guest]

How is it possible for a user with an administrator account under Windows XP
Home to see all other "User's Documents" folders and their contents under "My
Computer"? Normally, a user with an administrator account should see under
"My Computer" only their own Documents folder, the Shared Documents folder
and the Documents folders of users not protected by a logon password.
Documents folders for users with logon passwords are not displayed under My
Computer and access to these folders via the "Documents and Settings" folder
on the hard drive is denied. However, there seems to be a method of
circumventing these protections so that a user with an administrator account
under Windows XP Home can see the Documents folders of all users, whether or
not protected by a login password, under My Computer, and furthermore can see
all the subfolders and files (but not necessarily the file contents unless
given full access permission). Any ideas how this is done?

 

[Jim]

How is it possible for a user with an administrator account under Windows
XP
Home to see all other "User's Documents" folders and their contents under
"My
Computer"? Normally, a user with an administrator account should see
under
"My Computer" only their own Documents folder, the Shared Documents folder
and the Documents folders of users not protected by a logon password.
Documents folders for users with logon passwords are not displayed under
My
Computer and access to these folders via the "Documents and Settings"
folder
on the hard drive is denied. However, there seems to be a method of
circumventing these protections so that a user with an administrator
account
under Windows XP Home can see the Documents folders of all users, whether
or
not protected by a login password, under My Computer, and furthermore can
see
all the subfolders and files (but not necessarily the file contents unless
given full access permission). Any ideas how this is done?

A member of the administrators group can do whatever they whenever they
wish. All they need to do is reset the permissions, and you cannot remove
this ability.
Jim

 

[Poprivet]

How is it possible for a user with an administrator account under
Windows XP Home to see all other "User's Documents" folders and their
contents under "My Computer"? Normally, a user with an administrator
account should see under "My Computer" only their own Documents
folder, the Shared Documents folder and the Documents folders of
users not protected by a logon password. Documents folders for users
with logon passwords are not displayed under My Computer and access
to these folders via the "Documents and Settings" folder on the hard
drive is denied. However, there seems to be a method of
circumventing these protections so that a user with an administrator
account under Windows XP Home can see the Documents folders of all
users, whether or not protected by a login password, under My
Computer, and furthermore can see all the subfolders and files (but
not necessarily the file contents unless given full access
permission). Any ideas how this is done?

That's what the admin type accounts are for. For everyday operation you
should be using a limited account.

 

[Guest]

A member of the administrators group can do whatever they whenever they
wish. All they need to do is reset the permissions, and you cannot remove
this ability.
Jim
As far as I am aware if a user account has a Logon password then access to that user's folders and files is normally denied to othermembers the administrators group. So how can the permissions be reset to allow access i.e. to override the logon password protection?
SRB

 

[Ricky]

You can take ownership of the files as described here..

How to take ownership of a file or folder in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421/en-us