Cannot change default administrative shares

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This article was previously published under Q100517

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INTRODUCTION

Windows NT maintains default administrative shares that cannot be removed permanently. These shares are created for the Windows NT root directory where the system files are kept and for the root of each hard drive partition. The shares have a dollar sign ($) suffix, are invisible to network browsing, and are only accessible to accounts with Administrator, Backup Operator, or Server Operator privileges on the particular machine. For example, you might have the following default shares:

   WINNT$
   C$
   D$

You can disable these shares, but only for the current session. When you restart Windows NT, the shares will be reenabled. You cannot change the permissions on these shares anytime. If you attempt to do this, you receive the following message:

This has been shared for administrative purposes. The permissions cannot be set.