Windows 7: 'Shares' question

I was going through the Computer Management Window and was in the 'Shares' tab when I noticed there is a ADMIN$ share for the C:\Windows path ; description: Remote Admin.



I know that sharing your C:\Windows directory is not ideal and was concerned this might have happened by error or maybe virus. I basically am trying to find out if this is normal or abnormal.

Thanks

Yes I'd say it's normal. Mine has ADMIN$, C$, G$, IPC$ and Users, and my C: drive isn't shared.

I figured it was normal. Mainly because I deleted the share and it came back on restart, always good to be sure though

Yes, its normal. Its shared by default.
The $ suffix on any share will hide it from network discovery, so you'll need to type in the full address to access it.

These ones in particular (Admin$, IPC$, Drive Roots) are only accessible from the built in administrator, for the purpose of remote administration.
Its the same dealio with previous versions of Windows too.

If you want to share a drive at root, you'll need to manually do it using the usual share folder procedure.
But you're also right, its advised not to share C:\ or C:\windows, or other system folders.

Thanks for the detailed input xarden.

Actually to share the root of a drive you need to use the Security tab and allow for sharing permissions there as well as the standard sharing permissions.

Back in the days of Windows 98/NT4/Win2K/WinXP, the shortest way to access a disk's on a remote computer is to use the admin shares (x$ shares). It works like this: When you're logged as an admin class user, you can access a C drive on the remote computer by this address: \\[computer_name_or_ip_address]\C$. It will show you the whole C volume. Of course you need admin account to be able to access this admin share...

In the end, these shares are normal behavior, it's the remnants of old SMB/CIFS protocol of oldie Windows days. Of course if you have an Active Directory domain, it's still the easiest way to access a client's disk...

zzz2496