How to Remove Network Shares that No Longer Exist?

30 Aug 2006 5:23 PM

David

Hi,

I've done something that clearly MS didn't think I'd try and I could
need some help please.

I setup some network shares (on WinXP SP2 Home) on subdirectories of a
DVD I had in the machine at the time. The DVD (ie. the silver shiny
thing, not the drive itself) has obviously since been removed and I now
can't delete the shares!

I don't actually remember now what DVD I was sharing and with an amazing
degree of poor forethought I didn't call the shares anything even
vaguely useful to remind me. I've tried putting any old DVD back in the
drive but I can't I can't navigate to the specific subdirectories to
remove the shares.

I've tried to look at Shares in the Manage option off the My Computer
icon and this very helpfully tells me what shares are there but only
gives the options to "Refresh" or "Help" when I right-click on the ones
I want to remove (and "Help" doesn't!).

I assume at this point I need a registry hack to now remove these shares
but is it as simple as just deleting the offending entries from Shares
in the lanmanserver branch of Services?

Many thanks, David.

30 Aug 2006 7:49 PM

Ian

"David" wrote:

> I assume at this point I need a registry hack to now remove these shares
> but is it as simple as just deleting the offending entries from Shares
> in the lanmanserver branch of Services?
>

Yes. (and reboot)

This vulnerability has been around since NT4 (or possibly long before) and
has caught me out on more than one occasion. All too easy to take a server
and reassign it to new duties, you check the visible existing shares of
course, but you don't know that someone recently removed a disk without first
removing the share to it. That share is in fact still there, but totally
invisible.

Later, add a new disk and assign it the same letter, and you've got an
instant security-breach, even though you did everything by the book. =8-0

31 Aug 2006 7:32 AM

Steve Winograd [MVP]

In article <44f5c978$0$3228$ed261***@ptn-nntp-reader01.plus.net>,
David <em***@home.net> wrote:
Show quoteHide quote

>Hi,
>
>I've done something that clearly MS didn't think I'd try and I could
>need some help please.
>
>I setup some network shares (on WinXP SP2 Home) on subdirectories of a
>DVD I had in the machine at the time. The DVD (ie. the silver shiny
>thing, not the drive itself) has obviously since been removed and I now
>can't delete the shares!
>
>I don't actually remember now what DVD I was sharing and with an amazing
>degree of poor forethought I didn't call the shares anything even
>vaguely useful to remind me. I've tried putting any old DVD back in the
>drive but I can't I can't navigate to the specific subdirectories to
>remove the shares.
>
>I've tried to look at Shares in the Manage option off the My Computer
>icon and this very helpfully tells me what shares are there but only
>gives the options to "Refresh" or "Help" when I right-click on the ones
>I want to remove (and "Help" doesn't!).
>
>I assume at this point I need a registry hack to now remove these shares
>but is it as simple as just deleting the offending entries from Shares
>in the lanmanserver branch of Services?
>
>Many thanks, David.

You don't need to hack the registry, David. You can remove network
shares in My Computer > Manage if you start XP Home in "Safe Mode with
Networking".

The best way to find out if the simple registry hack works would be to
try it and see. If you do, I recommend making a restore point first
so that you can undo the change in case of problems.

--
Best Wishes,
Steve Winograd, MS-MVP (Windows Networking)

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