User hierarchy keeps Sharing itself on network!

[paul1149]

This is bizarre. It happened a month ago, and I thought I must have done something to cause it. But now it has happened again, and I know I did nothing.

I open Explorer to check what computers are on the LAN. I see that I'm the only one. Fine. Then I expand my computer name, to discover not only my shared folder, but my entire User hierarchy on the C drive. I right-click the User folder and check, and indeed it is Shared. I break the sharing and it disappears off the network.

Obviously, this is a massive privacy leak (theoretical in my case, but nonetheless...).

I have scanned using several programs, and the system is clean.

Win7, hp, 64b.

 

[kegobeer]

Have you checked advanced sharing settings? And have you checked the sharing settings for your folder? You can see them, because you own them, but if you click the Share... button or the Advanced Sharing... button, you should see that the folder isn't really shared out to anyone other than you.

 

[paul1149]

Advanced Sharing is where I had just disabled Sharing.

 

[kegobeer]

I guess I'm confused by your OP. Are you saying that you disabled sharing previously, but all of a sudden file sharing is enabled again?

 

[paul1149]

Exactly. I never did enable sharing for these folders, and now I've had to disable it twice.

 

[kegobeer]

Exactly. I never did enable sharing for these folders, and now I've had to disable it twice.

I'm still confused. You said "for these folders", but advanced sharing disables file and printer sharing for all folders, not specific ones. Maybe we aren't talking about the same advanced sharing. I'm talking about clicking on the orb, typing "advanced sharing" (and clicking on Manage advanced sharing settings), and making global changes.

 

[paul1149]

I see. I was referring to the Advanced Sharing button on the Sharing properties sheet of the hierarchy.

One other fact. A few days ago I very temporarily switched from a workgroup to a homegroup, and now I see under global Advanced Sharing that I had Public folders shared on homegroups. I don't see how this would cause such a massive security failure, especially to an entire hierarchy, but it's the only slightly unusual thing I can recall that has happened to this system.

 

[kegobeer]

Like I said, it's not actually being shared. User files cannot be shared to anyone, unless you specifically grant them not only sharing rights but local security rights. There are a bunch of steps you have to make in order for your personal files to be shared to anyone at all. There's no "security failure" at all. Get another computer, put it on your workgroup, and try to access your files with a different user on the second computer. You'll find it isn't possible. I have five Windows 7 computers, an Apple MacBook Pro, and a Windows Home Server. I can't access my personal "shared" files from any of those computers.

If you don't have any other computers and you don't share files, simply turn off file and printer sharing. If you want to keep file/printer sharing on, check out one of my recent posts in another networking thread - I list common advanced sharing settings in it.

 

[paul1149]

Next time it happens I'll do just that, but there's no telling when that might be. But this doesn't explain why the hierarchy was suddenly listed under Network. I don't even want the folders advertised, much less shared.

 

[kegobeer]

Next time it happens I'll do just that, but there's no telling when that might be. But this doesn't explain why the hierarchy was suddenly listed under Network. I don't even want the folders advertised, much less shared.

They aren't advertised. I have file and printer sharing enabled on my laptop, but I don't have any folders shared (even though I can "see" the user folders listed in the network while browsing from my laptop). I also have password protected sharing and require user accounts and passwords, per the advanced sharing settings. When I go to any other computer, my PC is listed in the network but none of the files are available or listed unless the correct user/password info is entered on the remote computer.

 

[paul1149]

Then what is the significance of them being listed under Network?

 

[kegobeer]

They are listed under the network because you have elected to allow files to be shared. If you have any files or folders shared, then they will be listed under network. That's so you can see, at a quick glance, what you've allowed to be shared. You can right click on any of them and check out the sharing properties to see exactly who has access to them.

For example, on my laptop I have file and printer sharing enabled, and I also have the public folders shared. My user files are also shared, by default (but there's a caveat, which I'll explain in a minute). When I go to my CarPC, nothing show up because I don't have an identical logon on that computer (or I don't connect using my user/password that's on my laptop). Now, when I go to my son's computer and log on using my identical user/password, I have access to my shared files, including my user files. Since I use the exact same credentials on both computers, and I have the same file sharing settings on both computers, I have full access to my shared files.

It's confusing, I admit. But once you get a grip on how sharing works it kind of makes sense.

 

[kegobeer]

As a follow up: if you ever enable a homegroup, chances are the Users directory will be shared when you switch back to a workgroup. You can right click on the Users folder, select sharing and then advanced sharing, and disable sharing. After that, none of the user folders will show up on your computer (or the remote computer), to include the public user folders.

 

[paul1149]

Ok then, putting your two posts together would explain this, because I did not manually share the User folders, but as I said, I did switch momentarily to homegroups a few days ago.

And then, once available for sharing, the folders would be seen on the network only according to the permissions I had granted. IIUC, in your case, you've granted permissions only to your own login on certain other computers, so access is quite severely restricted.

If all this is accurate, the mystery is solved. And while one might wish that the same rationale that automatically places the User folders on the network when switching to a homegroup would also take them off when switching to a workgroup, I can see that no real damage would have been done.

 

[chev65]

The problem isn't so much Homegroups, but trying to set up a Homegroup if there are OP systems besides Windows 7 machines in the network, it seems to cause this problem to occur. I've seen it quite a few times now.

Homegroups is really only made to work with Win 7 machines and for what ever reason when you set up a Homegroup when other Op systems are in the network it seems to share out the entire User folder. Easily fixed by unsharing the User folder but one would think that going to the workgroup would fix the problem but apparently that isn't the case.

This doesn't seem to occur when all the machines are Win 7 based.

 

[paul1149]

That is the case here. There is an XP home machine on the LAN.

Thanks for confirming the problem, and thanks to everyone here for their insight in getting me through this.

p.