The "Public" folders in Windows.
What are they actually for?
It's actually a pretty simple answer on the surface that I'll get to in a second, but
there's more to it.
And I kind of went down the rabbit hole on this as usual, and I'm going to teach you
probably more than you thought was necessary, but I think you'll be glad that you learned
all this because it's all about permissions in Windows and making sure that no one has
access to your computer that you don't know about.
So right off the bat, the simple answer is that the public folder in Windows has two
main purposes.
First, it is accessible to all users on the computer, all local users.
So you know how you log into Windows, you have your My Documents folder in your own
user folder.
Then you can also access the public documents and public videos folders, just like every
other user on there.
So it's for like sharing stuff.
But also, depending on the network sharing settings, it could be accessible to all other
users on your entire local network that wants to try and connect to your computer.
And I will get to those settings in a second, but basically what I mean is if you go into
like Windows Explorer and you were to actually type in the IP address, the local IP of your
computer, then if you have the certain sharing settings enabled, then you will see them appear
even though they're on a totally different computer, you can connect network-wise.
Now, as for where these settings are, in Windows 11 at least, you go into Settings and then
Network & Internet, and then Advanced Network Settings, and then Advanced Sharing Settings.
Here you're going to see different sections for Private Networks, Public Networks, and
All Networks.
And where that applies is if you go into the network adapter settings, you will see typically
a option for setting the adapter to either public or a private network.
And Windows seems to recommend the public setting, which is more restrictive, even if
you're at home.
Probably because most people are not really using the network sharing settings.
Like the typical person, probably for example, if they're setting up a printer, will do it
via USB, and they might not have sharing settings set up between computers.
Not many people do that, but really where it matters is if you're at like a coffee shop
or something where you are on a public network, you definitely want to have it set to public
and have more restricted settings.
And I will go over what all these different settings in here are for in a second.
These are important.
Now to see a list of what folders are potentially being shared across your local network at
the moment, there's a couple of ways.
Probably the easier way is to go into the start menu and just search for Computer Management.
And then on the left, go to Shared Folders, and then Shares, and then look on the right
side.
Don't worry about the ones that say Default Share and Remote Admin and Remote IPC.
Those are built-in ones, and those aren't actually sharing across the network.
So you can ignore those and just look to see if there's any other paths on there.
And those, at least on the network permission side, are set to be shared across the network.
But again, that's not all of it.
There is also the file system permission side that could also be restricting things.
So it's not like anything to panic for yet.
And another way you can see basically the same information is to go into the command
prompt and type in "net share", and you can see it'll show you the same stuff.
And to be clear also, it's not like this is sharing anything across the whole internet.
It's only stuff on your local network connected behind your own router.
Now to change the sharing settings of a particular folder, maybe it's one that you see appearing
in that shares list, or maybe not, you want to add sharing settings.
Either way, what you could do is right-click the folder and then go to Properties, and
then the Sharing tab.
This top part will show you info about whether or not the folder is shared at all, and the
network path that someone would use to connect to it, if so.
And it should show whether it's shared or not, regardless of whether that individual
folder is shared, or if a parent folder is shared.
So for example, in this case, I'm looking at the Public folder on my computer, and it
says it's being shared, even though it didn't show up in that shared folders list.
And that's because the Users folder above it is being shared.
So just be aware that it might not necessarily be that folder specifically set to be shared.
It could be a higher level one.
Also in this section at the top, you'll see this Share button.
And when you click that, it'll bring up what's also known as the simple sharing menu.
This lets you add and remove sharing permissions to control who, in terms of users or groups
of users, have access to that folder.
But you can also access the same menu by right-clicking a folder and going to Give Access To, and
then you can select specific people or remove access.
And it'll basically go through the same thing.
Back in the properties window, you'll also see a section for Advanced Sharing Settings.
And this is similar, but it only applies to the network level permissions, not the local
level permissions.
I don't want to get into the nitty gritty of that.
It's kind of beyond the point of this video, but just know that as an average home user,
you probably don't want to mess with this section.
It can get kind of messy in terms of the permissions, and you might have trouble where you think
you're sharing a folder, but you're not actually because some of the permissions aren't set.
It can just get really messy.
So now that we have a little bit of that context, I can go back into that advanced network sharing
settings and go over what all these do.
As you can see, the public and private network settings have basically the same options.
They're just controlled independently.
And what the Network Discovery option does is controls whether or not your computer will
automatically show up to other computers.
So like if you go into the Windows Explorer on another computer, whether or not it'll
show up there.
Now, if this is not enabled, another computer can still connect to you.
It's just that you would have to type in the IP address manually into the path bar.
But you can still connect, it's just not advertised basically.
Now the File and Printer Sharing setting seems like it should be straightforward, but it's
actually not quite as much.
So theoretically, if you were to turn this off, it would hopefully block all incoming
file sharing connections.
Anyone attempting to connect would be denied regardless of what the sharing settings are
on any folders.
And the way it does this is by actually changing Windows Firewall rules.
And you can see actually in the rules, if you enable them and disable them, which ones
get turned on.
Such as ones for various ports for file sharing, such as SMB.
And you can see all of these show up in the File and Printer Sharing firewall rule group.
So because these are firewall settings, these rules would overrule any sharing settings
in terms of denying it.
Nothing would have a chance to even connect in the first place.
However, here's a very important thing to understand, which is this setting and these
firewall rules only will have an effect if you're using the Windows firewall.
And just understand that a lot of third-party antiviruses might have their own firewall
that they use and will not use the Windows firewall.
So if you are using a third-party antivirus, don't necessarily rely on this setting and
assume that that's going to block every connection.
You'll want to go yourself and make sure that there's no folders being shared that you don't
want.
There is this one setting that only shows up in the private network options for "Set
up network connected devices automatically."
And this is basically just going to install drivers for network devices that show up.
Like if there is a printer on the network, it might set up and be able to use that.
So if you don't have any network connected devices that you're going to be needing to
connect to specifically from the computer, you don't have to worry about that.
Next, we can look at the All Network settings, and this is going to apply no matter what
kind of network the ethernet is.
And the first one is very relevant to this video, which is the public folder sharing
setting.
And basically what this does, if you toggle it on to enable public folder sharing, this
will add and remove permissions for the "Everyone" group on that folder.
So if you again were to go back and do the sharing thing, you'll see "Everyone" show
up.
For some quick additional context, I do want to explain something.
In terms of the Windows folder permissions and who can access a folder in Windows, there's
basically two layers of permissions.
First is the share permissions layer, which applies only to users who are connecting over
the network.
Then there's the file system layer of permissions, which also you can see by going to the properties
and security tab of a folder.
That's where these appear.
And these are going to apply whether you're connecting over a network or if you're even
just a user on the same computer logged in.
Therefore, because there are these two layers of permissions for a user, any user, local
or network to access a folder, it has to be explicitly granted permission for both of
these layers.
So knowing that, I can explain that the public folder sharing setting, what it does is assigns
the Allow permission to the Everyone group at both the network and file system level.
It assigns both, so therefore it's accessible from everyone.
Now related to that as a side note, you might notice if you enable the public folder sharing
setting, if you go to the Users folder and look at that, you may notice that it shows
it as being shared and giving full access to Everyone.
But you don't actually have to worry about that because it only assigns the file system
level permission for Everyone to the Public folder.
So the file system rules are still protecting every other folder in the Users folder.
And finally, there's the "Password Protected Sharing" [setting] in the all networks section.
And this basically makes it so you need to actually log into an account that exists on
a computer to be able to access any shared folder.
So this is probably a good idea to enable.
For additional context, if you go to connect to another computer, it will always ask for
credentials via pop up whether the password protected feature is on or not.
It's just that if it's not enabled, you can just put in anything as the username with
no password and you'll effectively be a guest.
And in that case, you'll be able to access anything that is accessible to the Everyone
group.
Anyway, if it is enabled, you'll still see that pop up, but you'll actually need to enter
valid credentials.
So a valid username that's on the computer and the correct password.
Otherwise, you won't be able to see anything at all, even if it is shared with Everyone.
And I can also point out that you really do need to use a username that has a password.
If you try to enter a username that doesn't have a password at all, like the Guest or
just someone who doesn't have a password set, then you cannot actually still access it.
It'll give you an error saying that it might have a blank password or something.
So you actually have to be able to log in with a password.
So hopefully now you can have a better understanding of how the sharing stuff works, at least with
the Public folders.
And you might be able to rest a bit more easy, knowing that you have better control over
what other devices can connect to the computer, if at all, and if you need to do it yourself,
how to.
If you enjoyed this video, definitely give it a big giant thumbs up for the YouTube algorithm
and let me know what you think down in the comments.
I think I'm actually probably going to have to make a second video because when I was
researching this video, I learned a lot more about more of the advanced settings that I
know a lot of people probably want to know about.
And that's even further down the rabbit hole.
I just wanted to focus more on the public folder side of stuff here, but let me know
if you want to see that.
If you want to keep watching, if I have, by the time you watch this, made a follow-up
video, I'll put that on here, but also I'll put another cool video where I talk about
some special Windows folders that you probably want to know about.
They're actually special purpose folders.
You can just click on those links right there.
So thanks so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one.