prevent users from creating folders in a document library - explorer view

Question

hi all,

I note that it is possible to prevent users from creating new folders via the library settings.

this disables the new folder icon on the documents ribbon however if the user opens the library in explorer in explorer view they appear to have the ability to create folders.

do I need to set permissions somewhere else in the farm to prevent users from

a) using explorer view

b) creating new folders in explorer view

cheers,

C.

Answer 1

Hi,

to prevent explorer view you should check out:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/tejasr/archive/2010/07/20/how-to-remove-open-with-windows-explorer-button-from-document-library-s-ribbon-menu.aspx

Hope this helps
Kind regards Stefan

---

http://www.n8d.at/blog
Follow me on Twitter: StFBauer | n8design

Microsoft Community Contributor 2011
MCTS - SharePoint / WSS Configuration and Development

Answer 2

hi stefan,

many thanks for your answer.

I'm not familiar with SharePoint solutions is this a feature of Visual Studio or is it something that can be achieved through the browser ?

 

Answer 3

Yes, basically you would need a Visual Studio 2010 to create feature, and follow the steps in the link, that Stefan provided.

 

However, if you don't have VS you can make this changes manually. Go to folder: %COMMONPROGRAMFILES%\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\TEMPLATE\FEATURES , create there a folder named DisableOpenWithExplorerButton, and copy Elements.xml file (from the steps in the link) and feature.xml file, that should look like:

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Feature Id="4a286b64-26e2-48ba-b011-4897a437fb3c"
     Title="DisableOpenWithExplorerButton"
     Description="DisableOpenWithExplorerButton"
     Version="1.0.0.0"
     Scope="Web"
     xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/">
 <ElementManifests>
  <ElementManifest Location="Elements.xml" />
 </ElementManifests>
</Feature>

 

 

Then start SharePoint 2010 Management Shell and run a command:

Install-SPFeature DisableOpenWithExplorerButton

 

After it you can go to your site "Site features" page and enable DisableOpenWithExplorerButton feature. This will remove the button.

Answer 4

Hi,

not as far is i know. The might can be something accomplished using PowerShell but i need a closer look.

kind regards Stefan

---

http://www.n8d.at/blog
Follow me on Twitter: StFBauer | n8design

Microsoft Community Contributor 2011
MCTS - SharePoint / WSS Configuration and Development

Answer 5

Hi Pavel,

sorry but your solution only work well on a single server environment but normaly you will have more than one server in a production environment. It can be dangerouse not using a normal solution deployment. I won't recommend your way.

You need to make manually make sure that every server has the same configuration. Which is not guaranteed that way.

Kind regards

Stefan.

---

http://www.n8d.at/blog
Follow me on Twitter: StFBauer | n8design

Microsoft Community Contributor 2011
MCTS - SharePoint / WSS Configuration and Development

Answer 6

Yes, I agree, that was a bad example. To create and deploy features without visual studio, it is definitely better to create .wsp package first (using makecab command-line utility) from feature.xml and elements.xml and then deploy as usual.

Answer 7

This looks like some bug to me.

If you configure the library to disallow the creation of new folders, then you shouldn't need to disable the Explorer View to prevent users going that way.

Explorer view can be very useful to move documents between locations, so SharePoint (or some other configuration) should prevent new folders while using Explorer View.

Btw, disabling explorer view does not entirely solve this.
You can still drag and drop folders via the multiple file upload form.
So that makes it even more clear that this is a bug.