Do you get “Access denied” error message when you try to access some file or folder on a shared folder on a home or office network ?

This is one very commonly faced problems with computers using NTFS file system which most of the windows Xp computers used.

In such a case, when a person shares some folder on a network, then there is usually a read permission for all others. That means all other people, other than the owner of that shared folder can only read its contents and not modify them.

Why Access denied ?

Sometimes it happens that other computers on the network don’t have even the permission to read anything from shared folder (which is on other computer) specially when the person shared the file in my documents , or some file shared on his desktop but these files which lies in my documents or on desktop are private by default when you use windows XP with ntfs file system. This is why Access Denied error message is shown.
How to fix it ?

This problem can be fixed by providing read or read-write permission on the folder from the computer which actually contains the folder.

Fix:

Let us see the steps to fix the problem :

1. Open My computer, Go to Tools > Folder option , click on View tab.

2. In advance settings, un-check “use simple file sharing” as shown in image below. Click Ok.

3. Right click on the shared folder and click on Properties.

4. Click on Security tab on Properties window as shown in image below.

5. Click on Add… Button on this window, this will launch another window as shown below.

6. In this window type everyone and press enter. This will add a user called everyone in the group or user names window of security tab which means any one on the network can access the shared files now.

7. Click on the user named Everyone to set default permissions allowed for the folder and set the permission as shown in image below and click Ok.

These permissions will be applicable to everyone on the same network on which computer is right now. As an example the image below shows that everyone has a read and execute permission. It does not give write or modify permission.

You can decide on permission which you want to give to others on the network.

NOTE:This fix is meant for NTFS partitions only.

TIP: If you want to share the folder with only one or two users and not with everyone on the network, then simply write their usernames in step 6 above instead of everyone, and set the permission for that user as mentioned in step 7.

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