Homegroup attempted, lock/unlock files, regular sharing, security, etc

[JimLewandowski]

What a mess.

I attempted a homegroup between a desktop and a laptop. It all worked, but when poking around Properties applets, I found that the desktop Jim-GLH (Jim) no longer "owned" any of the shared folders. An "unknown account" was now owner. After playing around with right-click "share with nobody" and "share read with homegroup" "share read/write with homegroup", etc. I have some inconsistencies. Depending on what "level" you share (folder depth), which screen in Windows Explorer, etc., some strange things happen. I have since forced ownership back to Jim on Jim-GLH by using the SECURITY applet somehow.

As part of this, I now recall I was fumbling with trying to get ownership back and unchecked/checked the "inherit permissions" on these folders and got them mucked up. Luckily I just found this:

Remove Lock Icon on Folder in Windows 7

But as usual, there's a nuance. The poster of the webpage above says to hit OK 3 times. Evidently, you do NOT hit the APPLY button. So, I was able to remove the lock from the newly created test E:\Eshared folder (below).

I have since revoked the homegroup from both computers.

Desktop - Windows 7
Computer: Jim-GLH
User: Jim (no password, admin)

Laptop - Windows 8
Computer: Jim-Laptop
User: Laptop (no password, admin) - chosen so as to not confuse "Jims"

I'm very aware of all the "help" tutorials all over but none go into enough detail to help someone understand what can go wrong. None. Zero. Zip. None of them. No youtubes, etc. Which brings me here.

For example, right now, Laptop can see 4 shared folders in D:\Libraries on Jim-GLH. But those 4 folders have "locks" (icon) on them as I was playing with them while they were part of a homegroup ( right-click and shared with "nobody" WHILE part of homegroup but have since removed homegroup). If I right-click one of those locked folders in D:\Libraries, there is a "share read with homegroup" and "share read/write with homegroup". Well, those files are NOT part of any homegroup now and Jim-GLH is NOT part of any homegroup. IMHO, those options should not be shown at this time as they are misleading. In other words, the 4 folders can be seen by laptop but I have no ability "share with Laptop" via right-click. So these 4 folders show as SHARED but are "shared with NOBODY" (hence the lock icon).

Additionally, those 4 "locked" folders, if I right-click, they show as SHARED, and ADVANCED SHARING shows the checkbox for "share this folder". However, on USER/PUBLIC (which LAPTOP can also see), right-click it says SHARED but ADVANCED SHARING does NOT have that checkbox checked.
On Laptop, there are some of those long SIDS on shared folders that have NO access (checkboxes in security).

The Win 8 laptop, when part of the homegroup, showed all 5 items shared with checkboxes. Yet, If I went into "change what is shared" the 5 choices ALWAYS shows "documents" as "not shared" but CLEARLY it is on the previous screen (checkmark). If I slide to SHARED and next/finish, and come back in, the slider is back to NOT SHARED.

As another example, on Jim-GLH, if a folder is SHARED and you go to ADVANCED SHARING, the "share this folder" checkbox is NOT checked. Huh? I can't trust doing anything as so much is inconsistent.

Basically, I want to understand all the nuances of getting things back to square one. NO folders shared anywhere in the world.

I just created a NEW folder on my E: drive (internal to JIM-GLH). When I SHARED it, it shows up with a lock on it (by default). So LAPTOP can see it but can not view it (permission denied). I'm mystified. There is no way to simply "unlock" that E: shared folder.

 

[Pyprohly]

Welcome back…

Could you clarify that? It’s a bit of a rave, and you haven’t asked anything specifically.

Are we talking about share permissions or NTFS permissions? You mention the word “share” many times but shares don’t do inheritance. If it’s share permissions we’re talking about, why not remove the share and start over?

 

[JimLewandowski]

There are way too many questions to ever understand what can go wrong with Windows Networking. Suffice to say, even using the GUI, things can go wrong. For example, somehow using the GUI, when I tried to STOP sharing a folder in the aforementioned homegroup, a popup would say "someone has a connection or a file opened for that folder". I had to shutdown the laptop to proceed.

Sharing and NTFS go hand-in-hand. What could I have done when sharing folders using a homegroup, such that My PC/user (I shared my files with laptop) no longer "owned" those folders. Is that the way it's supposed to be? If I were putting together a webpage to help people, I'd certainly try to explain that.

It also seems that when using non-homegroup sharing, the connections from local > remote are done under the guise of User=Guest (can't recall but last night I noticed this).

To summarize: people who write webpages virtually always won't provide enough clear examples so one can truly understand how things work.

A good comparison chart of Homegroup vs. non-homegroup sharing would be a start. It seems homegroup defaults to read access for other members. Conversely, when you simply right-click a folder to share, there are NO permissions for anyone on the network to view those folders. Hence, the homegroup "packages" some of the steps.