Date: Dec 18, 2002
Category: Operating Systems
Author(s): Andy Hui

You may notice that under Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP that all of your partitions are shared.   You delete the shares but they return when you next reboot.

These are called Administrative shares.  They are hidden from browsing, and may only be accessed by the Administrator's account with the correct password.

The default administration shares are designated by the logical drive names that you have on the computer, for example, the root folder of drive C is C$. You can turn off the automatic creation of the administrative shares by using either Registry Editor or Poledit.exe. Note that these methods do not remove the IPC$ share or existing shares that have been manually created.

CAUTION: Do not remove the Administrative Shares if your organization is using Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS), or Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) as these rely on Administrative Shares to function correctly.

Remove Administrative Shares By Using Poledit

1. Click Start, click Run, type poledit in the Open box, and then click OK.
2. On the File menu, click Open Registry.
3. Double-click Local Computer.
4. Expand Windows NT Network, and then expand Sharing (Server).
5. Click to clear the Create Hidden Drive Shares (Server) check box, and then click OK.
6. On the File menu, click Save.
   
   NOTE: To install the Windows 2000 Administration Tools (including Poledit.exe) on a Windows 2000 Professional-based computer, open the i386 folder on the applicable Windows 2000 Server CD-ROM and then double-click the Adminpak.msi file. Follow the instructions that appear in the Windows 2000 Administration Tools Setup Wizard.

Remove Administrative Shares By Using Registry Editor

You can remove automatic creation of the administrative shares by using Registry Editor. By using this method, you must make sure that the Group Policy does not restore this entry after you set it.

To remove automatic creation of the administrative shares by using Registry Editor:

1. Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe).
2. Locate and then click the following key in the registry:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters\AutoShareServer
   
3. Change the value of the AutoShareServer key to zero (0).
   NOTE: A setting of zero (0) prevents the administrative shares, such as C$, D$, and Admin$ from being created automatically.
4. Quit Registry Editor.

NOTE: If the AutoShareServer key does not exist, create the AutoShareServer key by using the following steps:

1. Locate and then click the following key in the registry:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters
   
2. On the Edit menu, click Add Value.
3. Type AutoShareServer, click REG_DWORD, and then click OK.
4. Type 0, and then click OK.
5. Quit Registry Editor, and then restart the computer.

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