I use drive D to hold all my data. With windows XP I could map the main pc drive D to my laptop. However with windows 7 it seems that I cannot map a drive root, only folders in the drive. Is there any way around this? I could set up a folder in the drive with all the data in it and map to that folder, but it seems rather a sad way around the problem.Chris

Odd, I've never had any problems sharing a complete drive. When you right click the drive and select Share With, then Advanced Sharing, Check box Share This Folder, it defaults to the complete drive, go down to permissions and click the that tab, give Everyone - Full Control. Now I would NOT recommend doing that to your C drive. But now are you trying to share between Windows 7 and XP or what? I'd recommend reviewing this (could be overkill for you) http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-7/share-files-and-printers-between-windows-7-and-xp/MCSE, MCSA, MCDST [If this post helps to resolve your issue, please click the "Mark as Answer" or "Helpful" button at the top of this message. By marking a post as Answered, or Helpful you help others find the answer faster.]

Yes, that is the process that I went through. It works well on Windows XP - I used it for years. However on Windows 7 it does not work. You can share the drive and set the permissions for 'everyone' and it all looks fine on the machine which you do it on, but when you try to open the visible drive on the networked laptop it will not let you. If you do it for a directory in the drive it is fine, but it will not let you do it with a root of the drive. It seems to be a specific Windows 7 function that it will not open a shared root of a drive, just a folder in the drive.Chris

I just did it on my Pro 64 install and it works. Right click on C:, Share with, Advanced Sharing Clicked on Permissions Add Everyone Select Full Control (could be Read if wanted) Click Apply and OK as needed to get out. Repeated for all my drives, C: - G: and I have R/W access to all of them. Rich

Hi Rich,Yes that bit works fine. But my guess is that the pc that you are using on the network to look at the shared drives is not using Windows 7.Having shared the drive, if you then go to a windows XP machine on the network you can see the drive and open the files as you would expect.However if you go to a windows 7 machine on the network you can see the drive listed, but when you try to open the files you get a 'you do not have permission' message. Specifically on Windows 7 you do not seem to be able to open a shared drive where the root is shared. (even though it is shared correctly and permissions have been given correctly).If you go back to the main machine and share a directory in the same drive then on the other windows 7 machine on the network you can see and open the directory with no problem. - proving the network is OK and both pc's are sharing OK.It is specifically a problem with Windows 7.I can resolve the problem by moving everthing on the drive from root to a new folder in the drive and share and connect to that - but then I have to change all of my programmes on the main computer to work with the new folder and not the root of the drive. I will do that if I have to, but this seems to be a common problem for lots of Windows 7 users and surely Microsoft would not have made such a 'security feature' without realising that a huge number of people use shared drives and map to them.Chris

After a lot of further investigation I now have the solution. As there are lots of people with the same problem I am posting it here.When you share a drive root and as part of this process give everyone permission to access it, there seems to be a bug which means that it does not fully work in Windows 7. It does not add the everyone permission.So what you need to do is share the root of the drive as above.Once that is done separately select the drive in Windows Explorer, right click for 'properties' and select the 'security' tab. You can then manually add 'everyone' to the permissions, giving them the permission that you want. If you do that the drive can be opened remotely.Chris

I am unable to get windows 7 to map to the root drive of a windows 2003 terminal server. If not able, will need to change all data access paths. Any thoughts? One