Sharing folders is a great way
to give people access to information,
but sometimes it can be a little confusing.
Different options, different tools,
I’m going to simplify it all for you, coming up now.
Hello everybody, my name’s Adam Gordon,
an edutainer here at ITProTV,
coming back at you with another discussion
about how you can optimize your Windows Server experience.
In this particular conversation,
we’re gonna take a look at something so simple,
people often overlook it and take it for granted,
and they get confused about how to make it happen.
I’m talking about how to share folders and files with people,
but to do so in an easy way.
Now, we’re gonna be able to take a look at how to do so
across three different server operating systems,
because it works the same in all of them.
We’re gonna take a look at Server 2016,
Server 2019 and of course,
the brand new Server 2022.
I’m going to use Windows Server 2019 running
as a virtual machine to show you how to do this
and show you just how simple it can be
to share that folder out, give people access to it,
and make sure they get the information they need,
when they need it.
Join me here, I’m gonna start out on our server desktop,
I’m running Server 2019 in a virtual machine.
And remember, no matter what I show you here,
it’s gonna to be the same, look the same,
be in the same place and work the same way
on Server 2016 as well as Server 2022.
We’re gonna go down to our Start menu
just so we can see how to get access to a folder
or create one if we need to.
I’m gonna show you two ways to do that.
We can use the traditional Folder icon right here,
the File Explorer,
and you guys probably know the shortcut for that.
Windows key letter E will open that as well.
And so we could easily do that, but did you know
we could also right click on that Start menu
and we can go right there to File Explorer
to open the same exact item, always more than one way.
As a matter of fact, a minimum of three ways always
to do just about anything in Windows,
and if you look hard enough,
you could probably find more than three.
So, however you want to open the File Explorer, totally up to you.
Since we’re here, I’m just gonna use my shortcut
from our Start menu, it’s gonna open up.
It looks like a standard File Explorer,
really gonna be the same on every machine,
and what we’re going to do is simply go into the C drive
because I need a folder to work with.
And I’ve already created one but I’ve put it
at the root of the C drive, so go take a look for it.
You can browse through any of the drives
in any of the areas of your system
to be able to find the folder that you want to share,
it’s really up to you.
So I’m gonna go to the C drive,
gonna click, bring that up.
And I’ve already created a folder that we’re gonna use,
it is right there.
It’s called Share_Me.
All I did was right click New Folder to create that,
and you can easily do that with no trouble,
or somebody else might be doing this on their system
and you’re gonna be given access to it,
but you’ll see right here New Folder,
and just give it a name
and we’re able to get that folder set up.
So I’ve done that already
and there’s nothing in the folder,
but that doesn’t really matter,
we don’t need content in there to share it,
we just need to know the folder’s location
and be able to right click and then have the ability
to make a good choice from menu items that we see.
So let’s back up one level,
so right click on the Share_Me folder,
and when we do that, let’s take a look at our menu.
So we have several options here.
I find as I talk to people about this
that most people don’t realize
that they can use this item right here,
give access to, as we right click on the menu,
and actually share this folder
with any of the named Users from that system.
You’ll see the Adam 2, 3, 4 and 5 Users are there,
or choose specific people
and we can go get a pick list
and simply search for or select the User in question,
giving them access to this folder automatically
once we click the button to share it,
and giving them Read permission;
that’s gonna be the default permission they get,
meaning they can see what’s in the folder
and they can work with it,
so that’s gonna be good enough for most people.
So we can do this.
This is the first of a couple of different ways,
actually three overall that I’m going to show you
and we can share the folder.
Let’s see what this looks like when we do this.
If I go ahead and I choose,
and I’m gonna choose the Adam 3 User
to be able to give access to.
If I choose that Adam 3 User, I get this prompt right here.
Let’s just bring this over here and get it out of the way
so we can clearly see it, and I’ll zoom in.
You’ll see it says,
“Hey, do you want to share the selected item or items?”
All I have to do is click Yes
and Windows requires your permission.
If not, click No so I can opt out easily.
And notice by default, Yes is already highlighted
anticipating that I’m gonna click it,
but when I click Yes,
share this Item or Share the Items, boom, it’s done.
So, right click, right?
And then choose the User and then Yes.
Three clicks, and if we include getting to the actual folder,
let’s say maybe four or five clicks,
and I was able to share that folder
and that’s all I have to do.
The folder is now available, it’s shared,
but shared specifically to that particular User.
So that’s the first way we can do this.
Now, what if I want to do something else?
Well, right click again.
Instead of ‘Give Access to’,
let’s go down here to the bottom of this menu,
and let’s just zoom in so you can see that,
and we’re gonna go to Properties.
This is where most of you are probably used
to going to make a folder and share it.
We go to Properties, and on the Properties
or in the Properties area of this particular folder,
we’ll just zoom in so you can see that,
and see we have a tabbed interface,
and moving left to right from General,
we’re gonna go to Sharing.
That’s gonna be the second place that we can go
and we’re gonna see two methods there.
So let’s take a look; go to Sharing, and under Sharing,
we’ll see that we have both the ability to do,
let’s call it Standard Sharing,
that’s the item at the top there where it says,
Network File and Folder Sharing,
or what’s called Advanced Sharing,
and we’ll take a look at each in turn
and set up sharers using both.
Difference here mainly is that when we do Advanced Sharing,
we have more options than we do
when we just simply create a normal standard Share.
So let’s take a look.
We’ll click Share,
and you’ll notice here that we’re gonna see,
we’ll just bring this over so you can see
that we’re kind of stacking those windows up as we go.
We can see the Users
that are already going to have access to this folder,
and it is shared with Adam 3,
the user we just shared with Read Permission,
the Administrative User,
as well as the Administrators Group.
I created the folder so I’m the User
as well as a member of the Administrators Group,
and that Group is now the Owner,
and we can see the Permission level
and I have the ability to change that if I want to modify that.
Maybe I want to give Adam 3 more permissions, Read and Write.
I could do that right from here
before I create the new Share,
or share it with additional people.
But let’s assume we’re gonna leave that alone for the minute.
I just have to start typing in the name of a User
right there in that line where my cursor is,
and once I find that User, simply use the Add button
when I select them to add them to the list.
So let’s start typing
because I’m gonna have multiple Adam Users there,
and I know we have Adam 4,
and I’m just gonna zoom out
so you can see this while I’m doing this.
And I can pull down as I start typing,
and you’ll see I’ve got a list
of all the Users currently in the system.
Notice I even have an option to create a brand new User
right from here on the fly if I want to.
So I’m gonna choose the Adam 4 User, click Add;
they get added to the list immediately
and they have the Standard Permission of Read
just like they would have
if we chose the ‘Get Access To’ option
or ‘Give Access To’ option that we just demonstrated,
but as I suggested, I can go ahead
and I can modify those Permissions
by clicking on the caret,
the downward facing black arrow to the right of Read,
and selecting Read/Write.
Or if I say, “You know what, I made a mistake;
I don’t really want that User there after all,”
I can simply remove them right from here.
So let’s change the Permissions for Adam 4,
let’s go into Adam 2
and let’s remove that User while we’re here,
pulling them off that list so you could see
that that’s done as well, and sure enough, they’re gone.
We’ve modified the Permissions for Adam 4,
everybody else is left intact.
And we’ll click Share to finalize our options here
and make sure that we can see that yes indeed,
we did create the Share, it has been shared.
It says, “Hey, we can email someone, send them a link,
copy the link, give to them in a variety of ways,”
no problem, and I even have an option there
to see all of the Network Shares
that are on this computer and available.
So we can actually go in and click there
if we want to see those Shares.
We’ll be taken just to another area
inside the Windows File Explorer to the Network area,
and we can see the Shares that are published,
and sure enough, there are three Shares,
and one of them, the one in the middle right there,
is gonna be the share we just created, the Share_Me folder.
And we can click and sure enough,
there’s nothing in there, but as the Administrator,
you’ll see if I want to, I can create…
oh, let’s just create a brand new text document;
let’s call it, “Hello World.txt”.
Or “Hello.orld”.
Let’s rename that so it’s actually gonna be called
something proper, “HelloWord.txt”.
And so now we can see
we’ve created a file inside of that Directory,
we’ll click Done, we’ll click Close,
and we can go in and sure enough,
I was able to do that directly through the Share
because I have Permissions.
No problem, what we say,
“easy peasy” I think is what people say, right?
Last way to do this.
Let’s right click on here, let’s go over to our C drive.
I’m gonna take you back to the same place,
show you the same thing,
but I’m just gonna show it to you from a different area.
Remember we were on the Sharing area
and I said, “Hey, we could Share,”
we can also do Advanced Sharing.
We can do this on the entire Hard Drive,
we can do it on a single folder, we can do it
on all sorts of places, it all works the same.
It’s just a matter of what information
you actually want to share
and just knowing where that information is.
If we go back to the Folder, we right click
and we go back to Sharing for the Share_Me folder,
and we click Advanced Sharing like we were about to do.
You’ll see we can share this folder, specify the name,
add another Share if we choose to,
and/or you’ll see we can specify Permissions.
Let’s just take a look at some of these options,
you’ll see we have that.
We can go ahead and add a new Share
so we can share it as something else,
if I don’t want to call it Share_Me,
maybe I want to call this Adam Share 1.
I can do that, specify the Maximum Allowed Number of Users
and/or specify a certain number,
meaning the Maximum Allowed under Windows
or only let’s say maybe ten or something like that.
And then I can click Permissions
and I can specify which Users or Groups
are gonna have Permissions.
By default, everyone has Read,
it’s a wide system group
that allows anybody connecting to the computer
to interact with the folder.
Maybe I want to add a certain User.
I can go right over here, maybe one of my Adam Users,
and I can click Add right from there.
And to do that, I just have to know the name of the User
and go search for them on browse,
so I’ll start typing Adam and let’s check the names.
I’m gonna have to see, I think there’s an Adam 5 in there.
Let’s see if that User comes back;
sure enough, we see the Adam 5 User is available
so we can add that User in.
We’ll click Okay, and then I can specify by highlighting them
what level of Permission I would like to give.
Notice I have different Permissions
than just Read or Read/Write.
It’s just what I got with the Standard Share,
I can see Read, Change or Full Control.
So Advanced Sharing gives us more Permissions
or Fine or Granular Control
to create the Share and allow Users to interact with it.
I’m gonna specify and we’ll give that User Read and Change.
We’ll click Apply, click Okay, we’ll click Okay,
and although we don’t see it listed here,
we’ve already created the Share and we can tell,
because now the Share name is changed,
we do have our User added.
When we click Permissions,
we can see that if we wanted to, but we know they’re there.
We’ll click Apply,
we’ll click Okay, we’ll click Close,
and we now have shared that
as an additional share assigning a different User.
Now if remember, we can go check all the Shares
that we’ve created just by coming down here,
going to Network, so let’s do that.
Let’s go to our machine and let’s open that up,
and as soon as we do, give it just a second,
it will bring up that list of Shares that we were looking at
and we can see that we have, I guess it will be a 4th Share
because we had three already.
We’ll be able to see our 4th Share,
the Adam Share that we just created;
Adam Share 1 specifically is what we created.
And it does take a moment sometimes when you’re browsing
to look for the Shares on the computer.
It’s kind of an archaic way going through the Network
to find them this way.
Normally we would go through either a Command line,
maybe use the Net Share command
to see what Shares are listed,
or we could use a browser and go directly to the machine,
but we’re kind of profiling the machine
and asking it to give us some information
and we have to be patient with it
while it looks it up and thinks and says,
“Oh, this is what you want to see,” and it presents it.
Oh, let’s see, hold on one second,
it’s not gonna let us in. No big deal.
Alright, well we know the Shares are there,
it may just be thinking about showing them to us,
but it’s not a big deal.
What we can do actually if we want to see them,
just real quick to finish up;
we’ve done this in several different ways.
We can go to the Server Manager
and look at the Shares right from here.
We’ll go to the Tools menu
and we’ll go to our Computer Management tool
and we’ll see the Shares that are listed there,
and we can tell for sure the Share’s been created this way.
And what we’re gonna do is come over here,
go to Shared Folders right there,
and we’ll go and we’ll take a look at Shares,
and it’s gonna give us the list
including the most recent Share that we just created.
Just move this over so we can see that,
or at least it should anyway; let’s update that.
There it is right there,
and Adam Share 1 right at the top alphabetically,
we can see the most recent Share we’ve created
along with Power Shell, along with Share_Me,
Users and some of the $ sign Shares
that are administrative in nature
and Windows itself creates and controls.
So more, as I said, than one way to find things,
usually at least three ways
to be able to get the same information.
One tool decides it’s not gonna work for some reason
or it’s just taking too long, just go use another one;
get to the same place, you do the same thing.
I’ll continue to bring you up to date information
about how to optimize your Windows Server Admin experience
in future conversations,
but until I come back on another exciting episode,
I’m gonna say goodbye for now and wish you happy Windowing.