This tip only applies to the following Windows OS versions:
Windows XP Professional, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista Small Business, Windows Vista Professional, Windows Vista Enterprise, Windows Vista Ultimate, Windows Server 2008

Need to know exactly who is connected to your shares – or maybe you have an undesired connection to your shares that you need to kick?

Introducing fsmgmt.msc – the Shared Folders tool. With it you can do those exact things in the above statement. You can get to it via. Start > Run > typing fsmgmt.msc, then hitting enter.

Shared Folder Tool

From here you have three options/sections:

• Shares – here you can see all the shares.
• Sessions – here you can view all the connections to your local shares. You can also disconnect users from your shares here.
• Open Files – here is where you can see what files are being operated on, and by who. You can end operations on files here, as well as ending operation on a share point.

By selecting the Sessions option in the left-hand pane, you can see a list of currently connected sessions to your machine. Right-click on a Username, and you have the option to “Close Session” – this does just what it says, it terminates the user’s session.

By selecting the Open Files option in the left-hand pane, you can see all the shares that are connected to, plus the files that are currently being operated on. Right-clicking on a file will allow you to “Close Open File” and end the operation. Closing the share point will disconnect the user from the share point – but NOT from the local machine.

Obviously, this isn’t the greatest tool in the world, but it gives you basic control over your shares. This is all you would need if your system is fully secured. Stay tuned for more info on how to do just that.

tags: 2003 server, 2008 server, fsmgmt, Security, security tools, share disconnect, share management, shared folders, shared open files, Tools, vista, Windows, windows security tools, xp