Hidden shares are special shares identified by the dollar sign ($) at the end of the share name. By default, Windows automatically creates administrative shares for each logical disk on your system in addition to another share called ADMIN$ for the Windows root directory.

Although these shares are designed for remote management and accessible only to administrators, it is strongly advisable to disable them if possible, as they present a possible security hole. If you try to delete these shares manually (for example, with the net share command), they will be re-created when you reboot your computer.

If you want to disable them permanently, use the following Windows Registry hack. Open the Registry editor by running the regedit command and navigate to HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanserver and choose the parameters sub-key.

If you’re using a workstation (works for most readers), add the AutoShareWks DWORD key with the value set to 0. For servers, add the key AutoShareServer with the value set to 0. When you’re done editing the registry, reboot your computer for the change to take effect.

Note that lack of these shares may cause some applications to stop working. If things go wrong, just delete the key from the registry and restart your computer. This hack doesn’t disable the IPC$ share (used for name-pipe communications).