Windows NT 4.0 automatically creates a set of administrative shares (e.g., ADMIN$, C$). Every time I attempt to change the default share permissions on the administrative shares, I receive the error message This has been shared for administrative purposes. The permissions cannot be set. I deleted and recreated the share from the NT Server Manager Shared Directories dialog box. However, setting the permissions on the newly created administrative share caused a General Protection Fault (GPF). How can I change the default share permissions on the administrative shares?
The system automatically sets administrative share permissions, and neither users nor administrators can change them. However, you can disable creating administrative shares automatically (see "Disable administrative shares," July 2001).
If you use NT Server Manager to delete then recreate an administrative share, it might at first look as if you can change the permissions. However, on NT 4.0 pre—Service Pack 4 (SP4) systems, an attempt to change the permissions on an administrative share generates a GPF. The GPF message reads Services .exe: exception: access violation (0xc0000005), Address: 0x 77f64bc3. The Microsoft article "Re-creating Admin Shares Causes Exception Error" (http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q158/4/33.asp) explains this bug in more detail.
Microsoft fixed this bug in SP4 and later. On an NT 4.0 SP4 or later system, clicking OK in the Access Through Share Permissions dialog box, which Figure 2 shows, displays the error message This has been shared for administrative purposes. The permissions cannot be set. Although the system doesn't generate a GPF, the effect is the same. No matter which share permissions you try to set, NT will create an administrative share with the default permissions.
CORRECTION
In NT Gatekeeper: "RPC and firewall configuration" (September 2001), the registry subkey that lets you restrict the port range that RPC's dynamic port allocation uses was incorrect. Rather than HKEY_ LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\ Rpc, the registry subkey should have been HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\Rpc\Internet. We apologize for any inconvenience that this error might have caused.
