Shared Folders Do Not Appear Shared

When you restart your computer after sharing many folders in Windows, some folder icons may not appear to be shared in Windows Explorer or My Computer.

This behavior can occur if you share 300 or more folders.

Microsoft is researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.

Typically, when you share a folder, its icon appears as a hand under a folder. When you restart your computer after sharing 300 or more folders, the icons of some shared folders may be displayed as a folder only. In addition, if you use the Net Watcher tool to view the shared folders on your computer, some shared folders may not be displayed.

Reducing the number of shared folders to less than 300 does not resolve this problem. Some shared folder icons still appear as not being shared.