Enable administrator shares in Vista | Sunday, 18 February 2007

This blog is based on information from the following article, and describes how to enable the browsing of administrative shares on a Vista machine.

e.g. Using the syntax \\MachineName\C$.

Note modifying the registry is dangerous and should only be attempted by experienced users. It's recommended you first backup the registry.

1. Type regedit.exe from the run command.
2. Navigate to the following registry key.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion \Policies\system\

3. Create a new DWORD value in the root of this key called LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy using the edit menu.
4. Edit the item and enter a value of 1.
5. Restart the computer.

After the computer has restarted you will be able to access the hidden administrative shares from another machine on the network, firewall settings permitting.