Cannot Change Default Administrative Shares

ID: Q100517

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows NT Workstation versions 3.5, 3.51, 4.0
Microsoft Windows NT Server versions 3.5, 3.51, 4.0

Windows NT maintains default administrative shares that cannot be removed permanently. These shares are created for the Windows NT root directory where the system files are kept and for the root of each hard drive partition. The shares have a dollar sign ($) suffix, are invisible to network browsing, and are only accessible to accounts with administrator privileges on the particular machine. For example, you might have the following default shares:


   WINNT$
   C$
   D$

You can disable these shares, but only for the current session. When you restart Windows NT, the shares will be re-enabled. You cannot change the permissions on these shares anytime. The following message is displayed if you attempt to do so:

This has been shared for administrative purposes. The permissions cannot be set.

Additional query words: prodnt


Keywords          : kbnetwork ntnetserv 
Version           : 3.1
Platform          : WINDOWS 
Issue type        :

Last Reviewed: January 13, 1999