Windows 7: NTFS Junctions, Sharing and User Permissions

Hi all,

I have a peculiar situation. I tend to use NTFS junctions a lot to keep all my media in one place. I also make use of the Windows 7 Homegroup feature in order to easily access this media.

When I share a folder to a homegroup that contains, as subfolders, an NTFS junction, the user permission for 'HomeUsers' do not get applied (inherited) to all the folders inside the NTFS junction. Even though I can list the contents of that NTFS junction from another computer, I cannot enter into another level of directories.

Example:

D:\Media\ is a normal folder containing the following subfolders:
D:\Media\Audio which is a standard folder
D:\Media\Video which is a NTFS junction that points to say E:\Videos\

Right clicking on D:\Media\ and selecting Share With -> Homegroup allows me to then access this media over the network.

On another PC that is joined to the Homegroup I have full access to everything contained in D:\Media\Audio (Since it is not a junction), however, I can only list the contents of D:\Media\Video and nothing more. I cannot go another level deep of listing or anything.

Manually inspecting the user permissions, I notice that all the folders contained in D:\Media\Video\ does not have the 'HomeUsers' permission. However the NTFS junction itself does have the 'HomeUsers' permission.



So I tried two things:
- Manually adding the 'HomeUsers' permission to the content that the NTFS junction is pointing to, i.e. everything in E:\Videos\ . This still leaves this content inaccessible.
- Manually adding the 'HomeUsers' permission to the content inside the NTFS junction, i.e. everything in D:\Media\Video\ . No love.

Can anyone suggest how I would overcome this issue?

Hello,

I got it to work using a program called Junction Link Magic. Here is my setup:

Junction C:\Testshare\Videos pointing to F:\Videos
C:\Testshare is shared to Homegroup with read/write

Permissions on F:\Videos is "Authenticated Users" have full control. The folder itself is not shared.

From another computer I can list the contents of files and folders within it.

I hope that helps.

The junction is pointing to the location, but the junction itself is in your C:\users\....

You have to set the right permissions for the junction itself, not the content it's pointing to.

A side note:
Why not use libraries? Junctions are kind of obsolete since we have libraries.

good luck

Good point.

Go to Libraries, right-click on Videos > Properties and then include any folders that have videos in them.

Thanks guys I will give your advice a try quick and bring feedback.

That is what I did. Right clicking on the junction D:\Media\Video and inspecting the permissions does well list 'HomeUsers' and it is gray (meaning its inherited from the parent folder D:\Media\ which I shared to the HomeGroup). However if I then inspect the permissions of the content inside the junction (D:\Media\Video\*), no 'HomeUsers' is inherited anywhere. From another computer this gives me access to list the contents of D:\Media\Video\ but I am not able to do anything else.

I'm not really fond of the way windows displays libraries. I tried adding multiple locations to one library on my laptop and then it doesn't always work very intuitively. For example if I open up the documents library with three sub-libraries, and I press ctrl-v to paste an object, it doesn't go into the library that is currently expanded but instead just always goes into the first library. Also I don't like the tree expand structure being used for each library, I prefer folders pointing to locations. Maybe I'm just picky, but little things can annoy me

Have you actually tried going another level deep instead of just listing the contents?

For example try to browse to C:\Testshare\Videos\SomeFolder\AnotherFolder\

(From another PC on the network ofcourse)

The biggest problem here is that a junction's contents do not inherit permissions from its parent (the junction itself)! I don't know if this is intentionally made so or what but it is rather annoying.

I'll still appreciate any feedback

You have to specify which of the folders is your default save location. This is done in the same dialog where you add or remove folders from the library.

But that would still limit you to a single save location. Not to mention the weird tree-expand like view :P I prefer a folder type navigation.

Anyway, there are a lot of other reasons I don't want to use libraries. It still doesn't change the problem with ntfs junctions and why the contents don't inherit the permissions :/

Before you enter ctrl+v, you need to click on the folder you want to save it to, on the left pane of the explorer,
(where the small icons represent the tree).
In my example I have "my documents" and "favorites" under "documents" library.

If I want to copy a file into the favorites, i need to click on documents to expand the tree,
and then click on favorites, then ctrl+v.



Tip:
Then you should use 1 library for 1 folder, instead of many folders in one library.
You can create your own libraries for each folder, just like you would create a junction.(minus the permissions problem)

Right-click on "libraries" in the left pane of the explorer, and chose -> new -> library
You can give it it's own name, it's own icon and view settings.

Try and see if that works for you.

Good luck