Registry Guide for Windows Registry Guide for Windows
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Registry tweaks, tricks & hacks to optimize, enhance and secure Microsoft Windows.

Automatic Hidden Shares (Windows NT/2000/XP)
Category: Home > Security > Network

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When networking has been installed on a Windows machine, it will automatically create hidden shares to the local disk drives. It is possible to disable the sharing at run-time, but this tweak will stop the automatic sharing altogether.

Open your registry and find the key below.

Create a new DWORD value of either 'AutoShareWks' for NT Workstation or 'AutoShareServer' for NT server. Then set the value to equal '0' to disable automatic sharing. If the values already exist then modify them to change the value.

Restart Windows and the automatic shares should not be created.

Note: The shares are normally accessed via \\server\c$ and \\server\d$ depending on the drive letter.

Registry Editor Example
|NameTypeData|
|(Default)REG_SZ(value not set)|
|AutoShareWksREG_DWORD0x00000000 (0)|
|AutoShareServerREG_DWORD0x00000000 (0)|
-
|HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parame...|
-

Settings:
System Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\
Parameters]

Name: AutoShareServer, AutoShareWks
Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value)
Value: (0 = disable shares, 1 = enable)

Disclaimer: Modifying the registry can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. We cannot guarantee that problems resulting from modifications to the registry can be solved. Use the information provided at your own risk.

Last Modified: April 3, 2002

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