Windows 7: Is a folder shared by permissions or is an account / password needed

Hey everyone,



so I just noticed two of my computers are automatically sharing the entire user’s directory with all permissions for everyone, I was reading up on this a bit before and it seems it’s a Windows bug.





I was wondering, since the password protected sharing is turned on by default, would anyone have been able to gain access to my computers information if they didn't have a user account / password or would they need an account / password no matter what the permissions are set to.


Thank you.

By default windows has the "guest" account turned off so no, no one outside with a username/pw that was not already known by your local machine should have been able to get access.

Though I'm surprised that you found your users folder shared since I have never seen that by default. Given that, I'd check to see if your computers "guest" user is enabled or not... (hopefully not). If it was then it may have been possible for others to browse that folder...