Add or Remove other file shares to SBS 2011 Remote Web Access

The new Microsoft Small Business Server 2011 (SBS 2011) has a great “Shared Folders in Remote Web Access (RWA)” feature. Unfortunately this feature shows only the folders shared on the same SBS server.

What if you want to add shared folders on other servers / NAS drives to Remote Web Access (RWA)?

What if you want to hide certain shared folders on Remote Web Access (RWA)?


There is no configuration interface available to control this feature from show or hide folders on the Remote Web Access (RWA).

Changing the web.config file will let you have the control over the shared files Remote Web Access (RWA)

Run the windows explorer as administrator and navigate to “C:\Program Files\Windows Small Business Server\Bin\WebApp\RemoteAccess”

“C:\Program Files\Windows Small Business Server\Bin\WebApp\RemoteAccess” is the default location of the web.config file

Make a copy of the original web.config file and save it as web.config.bak

Run the notepad as administrator Open web.config file to edit.

Once you opened the file search for “SBSStorageProvider”. The line should look like

<wssg.storageProvider type="Microsoft.WindowsServerSolutions.Web.Storage.SBSStorageProvider, Wssg.Web.StorageProvider" />

Comment the line using <!-- and -->. Commented line should look like

<!-- <wssg.storageProvider type="Microsoft.WindowsServerSolutions.Web.Storage.SBSStorageProvider, Wssg.Web.StorageProvider" /> -->

This will prevent Remote Web Access (RWA) from showing all the shared folders.

Now place the below code under the commented line.

<wssg.storageProvider type="Microsoft.WindowsServerSolutions.Web.Storage.FileSystemBasedStorageInformationProvider, Wssg.Web.Internal" shares="\\Server1\Share1;\\Server2\Share2;\\Server3\Share3" />

Replace the “\\Server1\Share1;\\Server2\Share2;\\Server3\Share3” with your shares, save and close the notepad.
eg: <wssg.storageProvider type="Microsoft.WindowsServerSolutions.Web.Storage.FileSystemBasedStorageInformationProvider, Wssg.Web.Internal" shares="\\FS01\Docs;\\SBS01\Users;\\NAS\archives" />

Open the Remote Web Access (RWA) and see now you can access shared folders on other servers as well.

You can also use this to remove unwanted shared folders from being listed on Remote Web Access (RWA).

Note: New shares will not be listed automatically on Remote Web Access (RWA) after editing the file. You have to manually add them to the shares=”” list.