PCTips Box

File sharing and permissions in Windows XP seem complicated.

Microsoft provides a Knowledge Base article, but reading it is like walking through molasses: It describes in infinite detail a file security system based on a 1-to-5 scale. However, if you look for this 1-to-5 scale anywhere in your security-settings interface, you may come away a little confused. These numbers are nowhere to be found.

Microsoft’s 1-to-5 scale means nothing to the individual user and relates in no way to the actual practice of setting your security protocols. Enter the Screen Savers. We are here to explain it to you. (more…)

With all the attention that spyware, phishing, e-mails, and corporate hackers get on any given day, we mustn’t forget that good ol’ Windows itself can be the source of a security hole. It turns out that Vista has a back door that could permit someone else to read any file on your hard drive, and the same problem exists in Microsoft Windows 2000 and XP. But don’t expect a fix anytime soon. This bug is a “feature.”

Before you can copy files from one PC to another on your network, you need to share the folder containing the files. That’s contrary to conventional wisdom, which holds that you should share only those folders you want made public and keep everything else unshared.

Enter Administrative Shares, which let network administrators perform maintenance remotely. The feature—which is turned on by default works by sharing your entire hard drive, and then hiding the share by adding a $ character as a suffix. But unless you’re in a corporate environment, you have nothing to gain by leaving this back door open and everything to lose. (more…)