Definition of administrative share in Network Encyclopedia.

What is Administrative Share

Administrative Share is a share created during setup by Microsoft Windows NT or Windows 2000 for system purposes and remote administration. These shares usually end in the «$» character, which makes them hidden shares. You cannot modify the permissions on these shares and you cannot remove the shares.

Here are some examples of administrative shares:

• C$, D$, and so on: The shares used by administrators to connect to the root of each volume on a network server and perform remote administration such as creating and deleting files and folders 
• ADMIN$: The share name for the %SystemRoot% folder, used by the system during remote administration 
• IPC$: A share used by interprocess communication (IPC) resources for sharing the named pipe interface, which allows applications running on different computers to communicate over the network 
• PRINT$: A share used to support shared printers 
• REPL$: A share used by the Directory Replicator Service that allows directory trees to be exported 
• NETLOGON: A share used by the NetLogon service that enables the processing of domain requests