condemnation?

As a newcomer I have read your three articles about file-sharing permissions, 9 printed pages. is that on itself not a condemnation of MS, to make what was so simple in former versions, so complicated in XP?
In the meantime I am left with the problem that the laptop connected to my home server has on the sharing window ‘make this folder private’ ticked and greyed out. Has anyone an idea how I can get that tick out of the way?
Henk Schuthof