Password protected user documents not blocked in explorer

Cymbal Man Freq · 04 Jan 2013

I created a second user last night and found a few folders in My Documents for the 2nd user had come from a Users/Public folder, when they were made in My Documents of the first user. So I went into the Users folder and looked into my first user and was able to access any folder despite being in the 2nd user. In Win XP I'd be blocked from accessing that folder because the user is password protected; in Win 7 that seems to be a security flaw since I'm not blocked.

logicearth · 04 Jan 2013

More likely you misconfigured something, but I don't have the full information of that is going on. Either way, what you describe is not the default behavior so you had to change the configuration to allow the second user to access the first user's directory.

Is the second user part of the Administrators group? Do you have UAC on or off?

Cymbal Man Freq · 04 Jan 2013

Yes, 2nd User is an Administrator, but that shouldn't be a factor. I assume UAC is on, but I haven't read any books to know for sure. I hate to mess with permissions except with the Take Ownership program on select folders.

logicearth · 04 Jan 2013

Second user is Administrator they can access everything on the system. This is the same on Windows XP. And what folders did you change permissions on? (Take ownership is changing permissions.)

Cymbal Man Freq · 05 Jan 2013

I've got another Win XP machine set up with everybody as Administrator, but my user is password protected and My Documents for my user is blocked if any other user tries to access them.

logicearth · 05 Jan 2013

And an administrator can override those locks. It is a power given to all those that are part of the Administrators group. Your documents ARE NOT protected, when all users are administrators.