Hide a System from the Network Browse List

Contributed by AlexTheBeast November 15, 2004  
Tagged: Windows networking

Prevent other people from seeing your system when browsing the Network Neighborhood.

Here in our office, if you browse the Network Neighborhood, you see every system that is connected. There is no reason that the snoop across the hall should see that my system is connected to the network.

The easiest way to prevent this is to turn off File and Printer Sharing for Microsoft Networks. However, this prevents one from sharing their files at all… and doesn’t work because I still need to be able to access by files from my lab.

So… here’s what I do:

1. Left click Start
2. Select Run
3. In the textbox type net config server /hidden:yes
4. Click OK

People (like me!) who know my UNC path can still get to my computer with ease. Network snoops who kill time by browsing around, however, will no longer see me.