How to add the Security tab to Explorer in XP Home

Windows XP Home (and Windows XP Professional outside a domain environment) both begin with the "simple file sharing" feature enabled. Among other things, this hides the Security tab when viewing file or folder properties in Windows Explorer, preventing you from seeing permissions on an NTFS volume.

On a Windows XP Professional system, Simple File Sharing can be easily turned off in Explorer.

On a Windows XP Home system, Simple File Sharing cannot be disabled, therefore the Security tab remains hidden while operating in Normal Mode. The Security tab is still accessible through Safe Mode. If you only have to make occasional permission changes, we encourage you to restart your computer, press F8 while it is booting, select Safe Mode and make any file permissions from there.

If you're still reading and you're stubbornly intent on enabling the Security tab in Normal Mode, there are a few other suggestions.

The security tab is displayed using the Security Shell Extension rshx32.dll, found in %SYSTEMROOT%\System32. While XP Professional and XP Home use the exact same version of this file, XP Home has a mechanism for flagging this file and preventing it from being loaded while in Normal Mode. Even renaming the file does not help. However, using an alternate Security Shell Extension will re-enable the Security tab even while Simple File Sharing is still enabled in Windows XP Home.

The only "legitimate" source of an alternate Security Shell Extension that we have located so far is in the Windows NT 4.0 Security Configuration Manager (SCM). While a renamed copy of rshx32.dll that is included in other Windows versions (i.e. Windows 2000) and Service Packs would also work, we do not know the legal implications of using such a file. SCM is the only freely downloadable, stand-alone product that we have found (so far) which includes an alternate Security Shell Extension.

The Security Configuration Manager is an NT4 tool which allows administrators to configure and analyze: Account Policies, Local Policies, Restricted Groups, System Services, System Registry, and System Store. It includes rshx32_5.dll which was used to enable NTFS 5 features under Windows NT 4.0, including permission inheritance, etc. Note: This means that this is a very early version of the NTFS 5 Security Shell Extension. We can offer no guarantees that using this Security Shell Extension to view/modify/set permissions won't have unforeseen side-effects or result in permission corruption. As with all TechBytes, you use this solution entirely at your own risk!

You have two options to enable your replacement Security Shell Extension. The simplest procedure is to install the complete SCM package:

Download the executable (scesp4i.exe) and run it to expand it to disk.
Right-click on setup.inf and choose Install to install the application.
Reboot when prompted.

If you don't want to install the complete SCM, a "cleaner" solution is:

Download the executable (scesp4i.exe) and run it to expand it to disk.
In the expanded folder find mssce.cab. Double-click it to open the cab and extract rshx32_5.dll to C:\Windows\SYSTEM32.
Load REGEDIT.
Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{1F2E5C40-9550-11CE-99D2-00AA006E086C}\InProcServer32.
Change the (Default) REG_SZ value to rshx32_5.dll.
Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{F37C5810-4D3F-11d0-B4BF-00AA00BBB723}\InProcServer32.
Change the (Default) REG_SZ value to rshx32_5.dll.
Close REGEDIT.

This change can be done on-the-fly without rebooting, so by creating .reg files containing these settings and the original settings, you can easily enable/disable the security tab.

Sample Enable_Security_Tab.reg file:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{1F2E5C40-9550-11CE-99D2-00AA006E086C}\InProcServer32]
@="rshx32_5.dll"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{F37C5810-4D3F-11d0-B4BF-00AA00BBB723}\InProcServer32]
@="rshx32_5.dll"

Sample Disable_Security_Tab.reg file:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{1F2E5C40-9550-11CE-99D2-00AA006E086C}\InProcServer32]
@="rshx32.dll"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{F37C5810-4D3F-11d0-B4BF-00AA00BBB723}\InProcServer32]
@="rshx32.dll"

These files can be run by double-clicking them or from the command-line.

Author: ASAK
Created: Dec 5 2005 (last modified Dec 6 2005)
Categories: Windows XP Home
TechByte #107

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Comment posted by 'Anonymous' on Dec 21 2006 @ 21:09:47
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