Win 7 Pro File Server, want to share folders with different passwords

Hello to all,

I've looked high and low for an answer to my question and I'm here now due to not finding answers via Google.

We're in a small office environment and we have a new Win 7 Pro computer acting as a file server. There is a Z drive mapped to all office computers with all general info for day to day business. I would like to set up a shared folder for accounting on the file server. There are 3 people who will need access to this folder and when mapping to it it must require a password and perhaps other credentials although that may not be necessary (not sure at this point). Naturally, any accounting info needs to stay out of sight of other employees except for management and accountants.

It is needed to set up other folders for sharing with other departments and access to them should be protected with a different password (or must it be the same password?).

Also, the procedure to get this working would be the same would it not if we want to share folders from any other computer on the network and map a network drive (shared folder) via another computer on the network?

I should mention that all computers on the network have user accounts and passwords.

Also, in Network and Sharing Center / Advanced Sharing Settings:

network discovery is on
file and printer sharing is on
public folder access is on
128 bit encryption is on
password protected sharing is on
use user accounts and passwords to connect to other computers is on

Do all these settings need to be the same on every Win 7 Pro computer on the network?

Thank you for any help.

TV

There is a tutorial for this that may be helpful.

You would need to have standard user accounts for the users who require access to files on the server. This method might only work when all the user accounts are located on the same machine.

Password Protected File Sharing in Windows 7

I'm not so sure that password protected file sharing works as it should. In my experience it doesn't work very well.

You may have a better chance by following the tutorial for NTFS file sharing via the following link. It's fairly complicated at first but this method does work.
Share Permissions and NTFS Permissions Folder Access Control & Folder Permissions - AD and Exchange Quantum Singularity

chev65,

Thanks for the response, however it is still not working on my end. I am trying this on a network with many machines so this is not a one machine question.

The instructions that you have provided, do you need to have a domain server set up for things to work?

Thanks for your help.

TV

tv69 said:

chev65,

Thanks for the response, however it is still not working on my end. I am trying this on a network with many machines so this is not a one machine question.

The instructions that you have provided, do you need to have a domain server set up for things to work?

Thanks for your help.

TV

I wasn't answering a one machine question to my knowledge.

No you do not need a Windows server or a Domain in order for the NTFS file sharing to work but you would need to follow and understand those directions completely before attempting to set it up.

I think I am understanding the explanation although I am not a networking expert. I also had our IT contractor here and we were testing things out.

We create the network share. Do I then have to create user accounts on the computer hosting the network share for all users that will need access from other computers? If I do not create user accounts on the computer hosting the network share, I am not able to add users that do not exist on the Security Tab.

It feels like we are missing something...

Thanks,

TV