administrative shares

Administrative shares are hidden network shares in Windows that end with a dollar sign ($), such as C$ or ADMIN$. These shares are created by default for administrative purposes, allowing authorized users to access system drives and folders remotely. However, users on WindowsForum.com report issues where custom administrative shares disappear after a restart or hibernation, particularly after upgrading to Windows 10. Others discuss security concerns, noting that deleting default administrative shares like IPC$ or PRINT$ is ineffective because Windows recreates them when the Server service restarts or the computer reboots. Troubleshooting topics include registry modifications that can block access to administrative shares, and mapping network drives to these shares in workgroup environments. Security updates have addressed vulnerabilities in administrative shares on failover cluster disks.