People work remotely all the time these days
and open files on systems that we may or may not know about.
You ever wonder how to check?
I'm going to show you how to do that, coming up now.
Hello, everybody.
My name is Adam Gordon, an Edutainer here at ITProTV,
coming at you with another discussion
about how you can optimize
your use of the Windows Servers in your environment,
whether they're Windows Server 16, Server 19,
or even the brand new Server 2022.
Everybody's working remotely these days,
and everybody's opening and accessing files,
but we may not always know someone's on the server
because they're not in front of us.
You ever scratched your head and wondered,
how can I tell if someone's accessing information,
and if they are, can I tell what files are in use,
can I close that access,
and what if I want to restart the server,
I may be kicking somebody off?
Well, I'm going to show you
how you can tell really easily and quickly.
We're going to take a look at a very simple tool you can use.
It's actually built right into the Computer Management tool,
and it's part of the Server Manager.
Take a look with me here, if you will.
We're going to do this on Server 2019.
I'm running it as a virtual machine.
But remember, this is going to work the same way
on Server 2016, Server 2019, and also Server 2022.
Same tool, same place, same process,
no matter which operating system you're working on.
We need to open up the Server Manager;
it may or may not already be open by default.
We're going to go down to our Start menu,
open the Server Manager from the pinned tile that's there,
and then we're going to go open
the Computer Management tool, and we're going to see
how we can tell who's connected to the server.
Let me just zoom in so you could see me do this.
I'll zoom in to show you the Start menu.
We can actually find the Server Manager right there
under the alphabetized letter S listing.
But depending on how many tools
and programs you have installed on the server,
it may or may not be right there as you open it.
So it's going to be there, but you may have to search for it.
But you can always come right over here,
and on this what I call the tic-tac-toe board
for all of our common use tools in Windows Server,
Server Manager is always going to be pinned
at the upper left-hand corner.
You could see the tile for it right there.
It's easy to get to.
You can just click there to open it up.
It'll open right up.
Just get rid of our reminder about
our Windows Admin Center if we want to try that tool.
What we can do from here
is simply come over to the Tools menu,
and once we're here, we just click.
We'll see an alphabetized list of tools that are available to us.
We want that second tool, Computer Management.
So we're going to choose that,
and when we bring that up,
it'll take just a moment to open up
and let's just click to make that full screen.
I'm going to move this bar over just enough
so we could see what's going on.
I want to come right down here under Computer Management,
the third area down under system tools, third item down,
Shared Folders assuming that we have a shared folder
that somebody is accessing, which makes sense
because that's the most common way
that somebody remote would connect into the server
and work with information.
We'd have to first share that information,
publishing it, making it available,
and then allowing people
with the appropriate permissions
to remotely connect to the server.
So it makes sense that we could see who's doing that
by using the shared folder review.
So when we double-click here, we open this up.
We see three elements that are available to us.
We could see the current shares,
how many pieces of information are available,
what are they called, and how are we making them available?
Let's see Sessions, who's actually connected in.
That'll give us the name of the user
and let us figure out if we want to let them
stay connected or not,
and if not, disconnect them,
and if so, certainly allow that,
and what files are being used.
So we could see the open files that they are using
when they're connected.
So in one place, using one specific area of one tool,
we get to see all the information we need.
And all we have to do is simply go and take a look.
So we could start, let's say hypothetically,
by looking at the shares that are available,
and any and all of the information that has been shared
will be listed, as you can see right here.
Let's put that up on the screen properly,
so you can see that.
And I see the ones with the dollar signs
at the end of their name,
Admin$, C$, IPC$.
Those are what we call administrative shares.
They're built by windows and maintained
by the Windows operating system itself,
and we can use them if we know how to use them
and have the appropriate rights to do so.
But I've also created a share called PowerShell,
and so that one is available,
and I have a share called users that provides access
to all the user's information
if someone wants to connect in and is given rights to do that.
So I could see there's several shares available,
and it looks like under a number of client connections there,
three, four columns in
as we move left to right across the screen,
share name, folder path type, number client connections.
You'll see as I move over;
let's just move over so you can see that.
You'll see that if we trace across from PowerShell,
we see the number one is there,
indicating that I have at least one person, one client,
one session connected to the PowerShell share.
And we can highlight this, really not a lot we can do here.
I can click through, and if I double-click,
I can see the actual share,
I can see the potential maximum number of users
that can be connected in any one time,
I can look at the permissions
that are assigned from a share and security standpoint,
but I'm really just looking at things,
and I can modify them, of course, if I want to.
But you'll notice here that I can stop sharing.
So I can prevent this data from being used
by simply right-clicking and doing that.
I also have, and this is the thing with these tools,
the same exact elements that are above are listed again
repetitively under all tasks.
So I really just have the ability to stop sharing,
but I can't actually find out who's connected,
and or I can't actually disconnect them directly.
I could simply stop the share, which would, in theory,
prevent them from accessing the data anymore going forward,
but I can only understand the nature of the share from here.
But we have two other areas we can look at and go to sessions.
This is where we get to see who's actually connected.
And under sessions, when I take a look here,
you'll see that the administrative user is connected.
That's actually me with my account.
What computer they're connected to?
This local machine.
I can see they have to open files in their connection.
It looks like they've been connected
for close to two hours,
and they've been idle for about nine minutes or so.
So I get some pretty detailed information about who's doing this.
And again, I can click here.
I can disconnect their session
if I choose to kick them out of their connected access to data,
and I can also specifically look
at what files they may be working with
or what area they're connected to by looking at open files.
And when I go here…
let me just pull this open so you can see this right here…
we see the path for what they're looking at.
And when I look at open files, I can see that indeed,
it looks like we have open files,
and I can see that they are
in the user's administrator documents PowerShell directory.
I could see their access by the administrator,
and again, I can see it looks like they're opened up with
"read access" or "read permission.”
And when I do that, I can also highlight here,
and I can, if I choose to, close the open file,
essentially cutting off the user from accessing that resource.
But being able to list who is available,
who's connected, who's interacting,
and what kind of information they're looking for,
it's actually very straightforward.
And remember, no matter what version of Windows you're using,
Server 16, Server 19, Server 2022,
all we need to do is use the Computer Management tool
and simply look underneath the shared folders area,
we'll find all the information that we probably are in need of.
I'll be back with additional tools, tips, and tricks
to help you further optimize your Windows experience.
But until I am, I'll wish you happy windowing,
and I'll see you soon.