Windows Vista Security: Praxisorientierte Sicherheit für Profis

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Sharing Your Data

You’ll often find that you want to share your documents, pictures, videos, and other

types of files with someone else. One of the most basic ways to share your files is to

send a file to someone by attaching it to an email message. Most instant messaging

programs will allow you to share files with other people while you are chatting with

them as well. Other ways to share files include copying the files to a data disk or a

device with removable storage, such as a USB flash device. Windows Vista offers

other ways to share your data beyond these basic techniques, and these built-in shar-

ing features are the subject of this section.

Enabling Sharing

Windows Vista supports two file-sharing models: standard file sharing and public file

sharing. With standard file sharing, you can share files from any folder on your com-

puter. Because you don’t need to move files from their current location, standard file

sharing is also referred to as in-place file sharing. Unlike earlier versions of Windows,

Windows Vista allows you to share individual files as well as folders.

Figure 11-9. Viewing effective permissions

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Chapter 11: Securing and Sharing Your Data

You can enable standard file sharing only on disks formatted with NTFS. Two sets of

permissions determine precisely who has access to shared files: NTFS permissions

and share permissions. Together, these permissions enable you to control who has

access to shared files and the level of access assigned. You do not need to move the

files you are sharing.

With public file sharing, you share files from a computer’s Public folder simply by

copying or moving files to the Public folder. Public files are available to anyone who

logs on to your computer locally regardless of whether he has a standard user

account or an administrator user account on the computer. You can also grant net-

work access to the Public folder. If you do this, however, there are no access restric-

tions. The public folder and its contents are open to everyone who can access your

computer over the local network.

Another type of sharing is printer sharing. Windows Vista allows you to share print-

ers attached to your computer. Windows Vista also allows you to share media in

your Windows Media Player library. When you share your media, you can play

media from another computer or from an Xbox 360 or other networked digital

media player, and let others who can log on to your computer over the network play

media from your computer.

If you aren’t careful when configuring your network settings, as discussed in

Chapter 14, you could suddenly find that the wrong people can access your public

files. To prevent this, you can restrict access by turning on password-protected shar-

ing. When password-protected sharing is turned on, only people with a user account

and password on your computer can access shared files, shared printers, and the

Public folder.

You can manage the various file-sharing features by completing the following steps:

1. Click Start and then click Network. On the Explorer toolbar, click Network and

Sharing Center.

2. In the Network and Sharing Center, you control sharing using the options under

Sharing and Discovery. Separate options are provided for file sharing, Public

folder sharing, printer sharing, password-protected sharing, and media sharing.

The status of each sharing option is listed as On or Off, as shown in Figure 11-10.

3. File-sharing options control standard file sharing. To configure file sharing,

expand the File Sharing Panel by clicking the related Expand button (see

Figure 11-11). To enable file sharing, select “Turn on file sharing.” To disable

file sharing, select “Turn off file sharing.” Click Apply.

4. Public folder sharing options control Public folder sharing on your computer. To

configure Public folder sharing, expand the Public Folder Sharing Panel by click-

ing the related Expand button (see Figure 11-12). Choose one of the following

options and then click Apply:

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Figure 11-10. Viewing the sharing configuration

Figure 11-11. Configuring file sharing