Windows 11 basic network drive share

Hollywood · Oct 17, 2023

I have 2 nearly the same new Windows 11 Pro installs. I have set the drive D on both computers to share the drive using Right Click, Sharing. Both computers are on the same network.

On each computer I can open a remote folder and copy stuff back to my computer, but I can not copy a file from the local computer to the remote folder (drive). This is the same on both computers. It makes no difference if the drive is directly from the "share" or mapped to a drive letter. I get the error You Need Permission To Perform This Action.

Any ideas what I need to do to fix this so I can copy/move/delete files in both directions?

Thanks!

Bree · Oct 17, 2023

Hollywood said:
On each computer I can open a remote folder and copy stuff back to my computer, but I can not copy a file from the local computer to the remote folder (drive). This is the same on both computers.

There are two sets of permission involved in sharing a folder across the network. The first is the obvious one, the share permissions. What is less obvious is that the ntfs security on the folder needs to be set so that a remote computer has permission to write to the folder.

For ease of transferring files in both directions, on all my computers I share a C:\Temp folder with share permissions set to 'Everyone - Full control' and also set the ntfs security for that folder to 'Everyone - Full control'.

Hollywood · Oct 17, 2023

Bree said:
There are two sets of permission involved in sharing a folder across the network. The first is the obvious one, the share permissions. What is less obvious is that the ntfs security on the folder needs to be set so that a remote computer has permission to write to the folder.

For ease of transferring files in both directions, on all my computers I share a C:\Temp folder with share permissions set to 'Everyone - Full control' and also set the ntfs security for that folder to 'Everyone - Full control'.

Thank you. I will try that in about an hour. You are right, some of the settings are not obvious and I appreciate the help here!

hsehestedt · Oct 17, 2023

I think that Bree is spot on, I just wanted to provide a little more detail...

If you use "Advanced sharing" to share a folder in Windows, then Windows will share the folder, but it will NOT modify the NTFS file permissions.

However, if you enable the file sharing wizard, then it will modify the NTFS file permissions for you.

As an example, I created two folders, Folder1 and Folder2. In Folder1 I created another folder and a text file. Then I copied both to Folder2.

Now, take a look at the two screenshots below:

In File Explorer, click the "..." and then "Options". On the next screen, go to the "View" tab and then examine the option "Use Sharing Wizard".

For Folder1, I created a share and shared it with Everyone while the sharing wizard was enabled. Note that the NTFS file permissions now include Everyone.

For Folder2, I did the same thing but with the wizard turned off. Note that the NTFS file permissions have not been updated to include Everyone:

Summary: Turning on the wizard will make life easier, but turning it off will give you greater manual control, if you need this. In a home environment, you likely want to leave that wizard turned on.

Hollywood · Oct 17, 2023

Bree said:
There are two sets of permission involved in sharing a folder across the network. The first is the obvious one, the share permissions. What is less obvious is that the ntfs security on the folder needs to be set so that a remote computer has permission to write to the folder.

For ease of transferring files in both directions, on all my computers I share a C:\Temp folder with share permissions set to 'Everyone - Full control' and also set the ntfs security for that folder to 'Everyone - Full control'.

@Bree I needed that nap really bad! My brain has to visualize a process, so I read and reread what you suggested and now with your help everything works perfectly. I never seen the Wizard (which is checked ON in the settings), but a switch on the Sharing tab and then on the Security tab did the trick and was easy to do.

Thank you and @hsehestedt for your help

Bree · Oct 17, 2023

Hollywood said:
@Bree I needed that nap really bad! My brain has to visualize a process, so I read and reread what you suggested and now with your help everything works perfectly. I never seen the Wizard (which is checked ON in the settings), but a switch on the Sharing tab and then on the Security tab did the trick and was easy to do.

Sleeping on something often helps it to click into place. If you used the Sharing tab's Advanced sharing button to set the share permissions and the Security tab to set file permissions, then you should now have a better understanding of how the two sets of permission work together.

There's more than one way to set up sharing. The Sharing Wizard (if enabled in Options) is what you'll see if you click the Share button on the Sharing tab. You can end up with the same share and file permissions, but it will be less clear how you achieved this as the Wizard does all the work for you.

The many ways you can set up sharing are covered in this tutorial. Maybe you should read it after you've slept on this again and absorbed what you have just learned.