Important Notes on Managing Shares

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Creating shares to distribute access to your virtual CDs over the Windows network interface is a very simple procedure. It is so easy, in fact, that you may soon find you have a huge number of shares, all of which require management. This is why we recommend adhering to the old adage: "Less is more!" In other words, make sure you create only the shares you really need. When you are sharing a resource, you can select a virtual CD drive or the content of the virtual CD (i.e., a folder) that is in a virtual drive.

 

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The share you create is effective for the virtual CD drive, even if you select a folder on the virtual CD, rather than the drive. When you share CD content (as opposed to the virtual drive), the drive in which that CD was inserted will only be accessible when it contains that particular CD.

 

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When you change the number of virtual CD drives in your file server, existing shares may become invalid. Any time you add or remove one or more drives, be sure to check all of your shares.

 

A share remains effective—i.e., visible to all users—until you remove it, regardless of whether the virtual CD required by the share is inserted or not. Furthermore, your users can see all shares, regardless of any restrictions on user access privileges. This is why we recommend observing the following, to help keep share management as simple as possible:

Enter meaningful texts for share names and descriptions, so your users can tell what is available in each share.
Change the share name when the you change the content of the share.
Remove shares from virtual CDs that are not available—even if the virtual CD will be unavailable for only a short time.
Let your users know which shares they can access and which they cannnot (e.g., if there are shares in which they do not have privileges).

 

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The more your users know about the shares they can use, the fewer questions you will need to field.

 

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It might sound like a lot of work, but in the long run it will save you a great deal of time and trouble. If your users know which virtual CDs they can—and, more importantly, cannot—access, they are less likely to find themselves faced with cryptic Windows error messages that they need to ask you about.