Windows 7 Shared Folder File Control

2

At my current employer, we have three separate, physical locations (A/B/C), all of which connect to a shared folder on a Windows 7 Professional computer, via VLAN. We have a non-existent budget for any more upgrades for our current server infrastructure, so switching to another OS or machine is not an option.

Each computer on our network (about 10 half WinXP, half 7, split between the three locations) has it's own unique name and has complete read/write control over every file in the folder. This creates some problems due to the fact that there is no access log over the files, frequently files are being locked by other users on the network to "Unknown User", and we have no way of seeing who deleted/moved/modified the files.

Another problem we have is that while using a Windows 7 machine on the network to connect to this computer, modifying the files is sometimes slow (even on the same LAN as the physical machine) and the user has to wait for the green loading bar in explorer for the "server" to process moving a 30KB file for 20 seconds or more.

We have a massive amount of files on our network, at least 2500 or more. I just have a few questions about how to manage this Windows 7 "server" setup, as I'm not really sure about how to do the following:

  1. Can I log when/how files are modified and who they are modified by? I know about audit security logs, but would they be efficient with this many files? (and is there any way to have a "previous version" setup for our files?)
  2. Would it be better to create individual user accounts on the physical "server" computer instead of expecting each machine on the network to report it's name?
  3. What would be the best way to prevent secondary users from opening a file which is already open by another user on the network?

Thank you for any assistance.

John

Posted 2014-02-27T14:04:15.280

Reputation: 121

Answers

2

  1. a) Use the in-built auditing, just ensure it's enabled and setup. Here's some more info on it.
    b) Pervious Versions is built into Windows 7 as well; just ensure it's enabled and setup.
  2. You should lock down the permissions by user, not by machine, especially if you want accountability.
  3. That's what file locks are for. You say yourself Office warns you the file is open and locked by someone else.

Open file locks are up to the program opening the file to decide how/if it locks on Open/Read.

For example, Office locks files intentionally, but other software may make copies that you work from, or just opens them in Read-only until saved, therefore not locking the file during usage.

If you have a lot of documents and you need/want full version control, you'll probably want to look into a Document Management System with versioning and check-outs. Perhaps, something like DocuShare by Xerox which is awesome, but not cheap. :)

Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007

Posted 2014-02-27T14:04:15.280

Reputation: 103 763

Hi, thanks for the reply. I'll read the link you gave about auditing - is it efficient to use when you have thousands of files? We use LibreOffice, which generates a .~lock file, but I would prefer to use the Windows lock system as opposed to relying on a third party program to tell me which files are open on our network, it seems redundant and like something that would only cause more errors. – John – 2014-02-27T17:06:28.417

I updated my answer regarding file locks. – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2014-02-27T17:11:10.797

Thanks! I'll check out DocuShare. Are there any open source alternatives to it? Additionally, I just have another question, when working with a Windows 7 server setup (without using Windows server), is it common to use a Windows 7 "shared folder" as a network device over 10 or more computers? – John – 2014-02-27T19:25:12.570

I wish there was, and you might find one, but Xerox is pretty darned good at document scanning/management, and hold many patents that places them in the top echelon of that category (IMO at least). When I said it's expensive, I'm not kidding, it was like $12K for 50 users last I looked into it (probably 5+ years ago now), but if you need it, it's the cat's meow. ;) – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2014-02-27T19:40:40.437

Asked: 2014-02-27T14:04:15.280

Viewed: 368 times

Active: 2014-02-27T17:08:42.833