Windows 8.1 and file sharing

[Mark Stega]

I've noted an oddity in Windows 8.1 that I can't explain; I hope someone can jump in with an answer.

In previous versions of Windows you can create a share from the GUI and see it in a cmd.exe session for the same user and vice-versa. The same is true for Win 8.1 UNLESS

• You 'run as administrator' when you start cmd.exe; In that case you can not 'see' shares (using 'net share') and any share that you create is not seen in the GUI. The odd thing is that if you do a 'WhoAmI' from either command line (regular or admin) it shows the same user name ("beachfield-xyzzy\mark" in my case).
  

Any thoughts or a definitive answer?

[Dean Roddey]

I guess it's now really a different account at some level where the shared resource accountability is done. Doesn't seem right, but it's hard to explain otherwise. The UAC stuff is just supposed to increase the rights of the current account. But maybe there's some fundamental reason why that's not safe enough or something.

If you create it from the admin enabled command line, does it show up in the GUI?

[Mark Stega]

I guess it's now really a different account at some level where the shared resource accountability is done. Doesn't seem right, but it's hard to explain otherwise. The UAC stuff is just supposed to increase the rights of the current account. But maybe there's some fundamental reason why that's not safe enough or something.

I suppose so, but it was a very unexpected outcome of 'run as admin'.

If you create it from the admin enabled command line, does it show up in the GUI?

Nope - bidirectional weirdness, I can't see the shares created by either the GUI or a regular cmd.exe nor are shares created by the admin cmd.exe visible to the GUI or non-admin cmd.exe windows.

[Dean Roddey]

I guess maybe run as admin is slightly different from the temporary bump in privileges that the UAC thingy does.

Yeh, it's more than just shares. I run my development command lines as Admin. I just tried to edit a text file I created from one of those command lines, from a non-run-as-admin command line, and when I try to save it, it forces me to save to another file name. I can't update it.

But, in this case, it has the asymmetry one would expect. I.e. I can edit a file created not as admin from an admin elevated session, but not the other way around.