file sharing and permission on xp Pro?

  • Thread starter Thread starter peter
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peter

I'm asked by a friend to set up two PCs (a windowsXP Pro and a windowsXP
Home) to share files.

What I do is create two folders on each PC, an incoming and an outgoing.
Files dropped into the outgoing folder (a local shared folder) will be
visible in the incoming folder on the other PC (a network path shortcut).
Each person only has read permission on the incoming folder content.

The other alternative is to set up only one shared folder on one of the PC
and allow both PCs to have read/write permissions. Of course this PC needs
to be on at all times. In retrospect this simpler approach may be easier to
manage for the users (don't have to worry about different versions of the
same file). Is there a better way or a standard convention to do this?

This is on a domain-less network, and each PC has an account set up for the
other user with identical name/password, and guest account is off.

Anyway, I run into a minor problem. On the XP Pro PC, default file
permission do not allow the other PC user to read the file, so each time the
user of the XP Pro PC wants to share a file, he has to manually add read
permission to the file for the other user, after dropping it into the
outgoing folder.

Is there a way to eliminate this step? The only way I can think of is to
change C:\ to have read permission for the other PC user, so that any files
created under C:\ will also inherit this permission. But this seems like an
overkill. Is there a way to cause the file permission to change
automatically when it is dropped into the outgoing folder? Since inheritance
works during creation, if I create a new file *inside* the outgoing folder,
it will inherit the read permission for the other user. But dropping a file
created elsewhere into this folder does not inherit this permission.

I did not use any wizards and I turned off simple file sharing, because I
want to know what is going on.
 
First, do you have Simply File Sharing turned on? I suggest you turn it off,
but just so you know, the results of the Moving files differ if you have it
on.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;304040

Here are the basic rules when copying vs moving files on NTFS partitions:

When copying files or folders:

* When copying a file or folder within the same NTFS partition, the copy
of the file or folder takes on the permissions of the destination.
* When copying a file or folder between different NTFS partitions, the
copy also takes on the permissions of the destination.
* When copying a file or folder to a non-NTFS partition, the file or
folder will lose all permissions.

When moving files or folders:

* When moving a file or folder within the same NTFS partition, the file
or folder will retain its permissions.
* When moving a file or folder between different NTFS partitions, the
file or folder takes on the permissions of the destination (because a move
operation is actually a copy and delete).
* When moving a file or folder to a non-NTFS partition, the file or
folder will lose all permissions.

It is never recommended that you 'share' the entire root of the paritition.
This is the admin$ share, and it is definitely overkill.

FE
Wm P
 
Fatal_Exception said:
First, do you have Simply File Sharing turned on? I suggest you turn it
off,
but just so you know, the results of the Moving files differ if you have
it
on.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;304040
Click to expand...

Thanks, I need to find more related articles to read.
Here are the basic rules when copying vs moving files on NTFS partitions:

When copying files or folders:

* When copying a file or folder within the same NTFS partition, the
copy
of the file or folder takes on the permissions of the destination.
* When copying a file or folder between different NTFS partitions, the
copy also takes on the permissions of the destination.
* When copying a file or folder to a non-NTFS partition, the file or
folder will lose all permissions.

When moving files or folders:

* When moving a file or folder within the same NTFS partition, the file
or folder will retain its permissions.
* When moving a file or folder between different NTFS partitions, the
file or folder takes on the permissions of the destination (because a move
operation is actually a copy and delete).
* When moving a file or folder to a non-NTFS partition, the file or
folder will lose all permissions.
Click to expand...

Can you tell me where this copy/move behavior is documented?

It seems that my problem can be solved by having the user copy a file into
the "outgoing" folder instead of moving it there. Since the folder already
has the proper permission, this would cause the file to inherit the right
permission.

I did turn off simple file sharing on the winxp pro PC. Using the notation
in the article you quoted above, I'm trying to achieve

Shared Files on the Network (Readable by one user)

which is impossible with simple file sharing.
 
It seems that my problem can be solved by having the user copy a file into
the "outgoing" folder instead of moving it there. Since the folder already
has the proper permission, this would cause the file to inherit the right
permission.
Click to expand...

Peter,

yes, that is correct.

Another trick could be to create a different drive. Probably
creating one through the subst command could already work, you'd
have to test that. In that case all moves to that pseudo drive
would work like copies.

Hans-Georg
 
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