Windows Vista: Creating a Hidden Share

Windows has a great feature for accessing files on another computer, its called shared folders. These are folders on your computer that you have chosen to make available to others to take files from, or add files to.

When you create shared folders they will be visible to anyone who visits your computer on your local network. Although, if you don't want people to see the shared folders you created its very easy to hide the name so it won't be displayed when people visit your computer.

• Right-click a folder in the Windows Explorer and select Properties.
• Click the Sharing tab.
• Press the 'Advanced Sharing...' button.
• Check the 'Share this folder' checkbox.
• Type in a name for your shared folder, then add a "$" character to the end of the name. (for example: hiddenshare$)
• Press the OK button.

Note: You can also use this technique to create a regular share that will be visible to anyone to visits your computer, all you have to do is leave off the "$" at the end of the share name.

To access the share folder you created, you need to create a UNC with the computer and hidden share name followed by the "$". The following is an example of a UNC to a hidden share: \\computername\hiddenshare$. If you forget to include the dollar sign character at the end of the UNC, the shared folder will not be found.