Registry Settings Which Affect Access To Your Server

Windows NT based operating systems (NT, 2000, XP, Server 2003) use Access Control Lists (ACLs) to meter access to files and folders which are NTFS based. If your server uses NTFS (as most do), you should know how to create and modify ACLs, to allow or prevent access to specific files and folders.

Besides the NTFS ACLs, though, there are registry based settings that can affect the ability of your server to be seen, or accessed, by clients on the network. These settings work in addition to, or in spite of, the ACLs.

• The Hidden setting will explicitly instruct the browser to not enumerate your server.
• The restrictanonymous setting will affect the ability of your server to be enumerated by the browser, and the ability for it to be accessed by clients using the Guest account.
• The RestrictNullSessAccess setting will affect the ability of specific shares to be accessed by clients using the Guest account.