- On Windows systems, a folder resource made available to others across a
network. It is said to be "shared" because other users can make
use of it.
Shared resources can have permissions applied to them, limiting who can make use or a shared resource and what they can do with a shared resource. For example, a shared folder might allow some people full read-write access but others only read access, a shared printer might only permit a restricted group of users to print to it.