Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Enable Windows 7 admin shares for local accounts (c$, etc)

If you are frustrated by the lack of access to admin shares in Vista or Windows 7 here is a reg hack to re-enable those shares. This will allow local accounts (On the host machine) to access admin shares. By changing this registry setting you are DISABLING UAC remote restrictions!

Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Key: Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System Name: LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy Data Type: REG_DWORD
Value: 1

Please be aware that this is a security hole if your systems are not patched (Not to mention zero day attacks). Use with discretion and without blame (Me that is).

From Microsoft:
How UAC remote restrictions work 
To better protect those users who are members of the local Administrators group, we implement UAC restrictions on the network. This mechanism helps prevent against "loopback" attacks. This mechanism also helps prevent local malicious software from running remotely with administrative rights.

Source: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951016/
Other Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_share