How To Restore The Security Tab in Windows XP Pro Folders

If you right clicked a folder in your Windows XP Professional file explorer to grant rights to specific users, and found the Security tab missing, then you are not alone. I had this problem when I was trying to open a log file in one of my virtual directories for an application I was writing using ASP.NET. I got a security exception because the user that the application was running in the context of did not have write permissions on that folder. So I needed to grant these permissions and could not find the Security tab to do this. Ultimately I figured it out. Here’s how.

Restore the Security Tab for your Folders

  • Right click Start and Click Explore to open a file explorer window.
  • Click Tools > Folder Options. Click the View tab.
  • In the View tab, scroll to the bottom until you see the “Use Simple File Sharing (Recommended)” checkbox.

    restore-security-tab-windows-xp-pro-folders-image-01

  • Uncheck the “Use Simple File Sharing (Recommended)” checkbox and click Ok.
  • Now, right click any folder and click Sharing and Security…

    restore-security-tab-windows-xp-pro-folders-image-02

  • You should see the Security tab which will allow you to set user specific folder permissions.

2 people commented!

  1. Drew says:

    Thank you for posting this. I have been pulling my hair out trying to figure out why I have my access denied to my folders now that I swapped in a separate hard drive into my laptop…this solves everything. It is kind of obvious now that I see the solution but the way Microsoft hides things (puts them in obtuse management areas) drives me crazy…

    Again thank you very much.


    Drew

  2. Roger Lawes says:

    The answer above worked on a computer isolated from a network.

    After unchecking the tab Use simple file sharing(Recommended) on the view tab of the folder options of My Computer the network on a TAFE network, I then right clicked a folder but the security tab was not enabled

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