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can i hide just a few mapped drives?

jungle

jungle

Senior member
I have some win98 machines that connect to several mapped drives, I would like to hide like two of the four drives. The deal is that some softwares need to connect to their data via a drive letter and UNC's don't work. I would like to hide them so uses don't wander around those drives, but yet still have their apps write data to those locations. Also these users also need to see other mapped drives, ie their personal folders and shared data folders.


tia...
 
I don't know for sure, but maybe you can try TweakUI? I know it has an option to pick which rive letters are viewable in MyComputeer/Explorer. As I said though, I have no idea if this works with mapped drives.

\Dan
 
There is no way to hide it that I know of. Configure the share to allow them access to only the appropriate files and read only/read write as need be.
 
tweakUI does let you choose what drives to hide...... tanks!


the deal is that some programs that our students use write to a database on the server, that data base must be a mapped drive, with full read/write access! grrrrr..... so a really rock and a hard place.... so i will just have to have tweak loaded on each machine, and hide that drive mapping. I have other similar software, but they let me use an UNC instead of a drive mapping which avoids this whole issue.
 
And when the students simply start going:

start -> run -> c:
start -> run -> d:
start -> run -> e:
.
.
.
start-> run -> z:

or even easier:
start -> run -> command -> net use

what will you do?
 
probally nothing, unless you have a better idea. Using tweak UI will stop about 98% of the students. So until the info leaks out, I am not worried. It hasn't been a big issue yet, i am just trying to head off any future trouble.
 
So why not use a real database management system? SQL Server anyone?

Security by obscurity has its limitations and I would seek to avoid it if possible, especially if the back-end is so inherintly insecure.

-Spy
 
If the drive needs read/write access to everyone, then you need to have a policy in place for *when* someone starts abusing it. Not *if*, and not trying to find ways to keep the majority out, because the majority of people that would attempt to abuse it are in the 2% that simply hiding the drive won't stop.

If you have the ability to track user requests, there's a good starting point. Make it known that its a strict, 0 warning policy. Anyone caught fooling with it simply has access suspended for an indefinate period of time, plus faces academic punishment as well.

Clearly state the punishments, make it known that they are actively enforced. That will reduce the # of students willing to risk it even more.

*EDIT*
But I have to agree with the comments above, try to find a better way that doesn't require read/write access for everyone.
*/EDIT*
 
I forgot to mention in my earlier post, if you have no other options and *must* do it this way I would reccomend writing a risk analysis and submitting it to the "powers that be". That way if (when) a problem does occur it's not your ass on the line.

-Spy
 
the best we could do is to give warnings to students not to play around and warn of the consiquences of doing so.

tracking this sort of stuff is pretty hard to do. how can you tell that bobby deleted folder abc at 11:45?????

i would love to run it on an oracle or sql back end, however i don't feel like rewritting copy righted software. My hands are pretty much tied when a vendor say, locate the data storage area on a share w/ full read/write access.
 
tracking this sort of stuff is pretty hard to do. how can you tell that bobby deleted folder abc at 11:45?????
Click to expand...

Assuming your using NTFS on your server setup auditing on that folder. Then you can tell who accessed or deleted the folder. I'm with them. Once one person knows how to do get in it'll spread pretty fast to everyone else.
 
Once a drive is mapped, you cannot hide it. The best way would be a UNC path but you said that wouldn't work. Sorry...

Dave
 
Once a drive is mapped, you cannot hide it. The best way would be a UNC path but you said that wouldn't work. Sorry...

Dave
Click to expand...
Uhm... Unless I read his response to my idea of using TweakUI incorrectly, it seems that there is, in fact, a way to hide the drives...

\Dan
 
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