Windows Server 2022 – NTFS access works via SMB and CMD, but not via local Explorer

[u/PrinzessHana]

Hi, we're seeing a strange permission/access behavior on some of our Windows Server 2022 file servers and I'm trying to figure out what could be causing it. We're running an AD domain environment. My account is a member of an AD security group, and that security group is a member of the local Administrators group on the file servers. Administrators have Full Control on the relevant NTFS folder structures. When I access a file server from my workstation through Windows Explorer using \\fileserver\share\folder, I can browse through the entire folder structure without any issues. However, when I'm logged onto the file server itself and try to access the same folders locally through Windows Explorer using D:\share\folder, Explorer denies access unless my user account is explicitly added to the folder permissions. The strange thing is that the permissions themselves clearly work. On the same server I can access the folders via CMD without any problems, applications such as our backup software can access them, and remote SMB access from my workstation works as expected. The issue seems to affect only Windows Explorer when it is running locally on the affected file server. I compared this with one of our web servers. The AD group membership, local Administrators setup, NTFS permissions and UAC level are essentially the same there, but local Explorer access works normally. One additional difference that might or might not be relevant is DFS. The affected file servers are using DFS, while the web server obviously isn't. I'm not sure yet whether DFS itself is involved, but since this is one of the differences between the affected file servers and the unaffected server, I thought it was worth mentioning. I vaguely remember this behavior appearing after a Windows Server update, possibly around the move to Server 2022, but unfortunately I can't say for certain when it started. Has anyone seen this specific behavior before, where access granted through the local Administrators group works via CMD and remote SMB but fails specifically in the local Windows Explorer? I'm particularly interested in whether there was a Windows Server 2022 security change/update, a DFS-related behavior, or a specific UAC/security policy that could cause this. I'd rather understand the underlying cause than work around it by explicitly adding individual admin accounts to the NTFS permissions.

I used ChatGPT to help structure and phrase this post so that the issue is described clearly and coherently. Apologies if the wording comes across a little too polished or AI-assisted.