What is Authenticated Users group in Windows 7?

Question

I was running Windows 7 Ultimate (version 6.1.7600) and for some problem I cannot resolve, I had to reinstall it (I cannot rely on restore points). Now I've seen something that I didn't notice ever (neither in XP nor 7): standard users (non-admin users) can delete file/folder that they didn't create. To investigate this, I opened properties dialog box of a drive, choose security tab, and saw that there is a user group named Authenticated Users, who have the privilege of modifying and writing to every drive. From there if I uncheck modify checkbox for Authenticated Users, then files cannot be deleted from non-admin user account.

Now, from Computer Management window, I choose System Tools > Local Users & Groups > Groups from the left pane. The middle pane lists all groups but I didn't see Authenticated Users group.

I'd like to give only read, list and execute permissions to users in Authenticated User group. How can I do that? Thanks for your time.

Answer 1

Authenticated Users is a pseudo-group (which is why it exists, but is not listed in Users & groups), it includes both Local PC users and Domain users as explained in this Technet article

Answer 2

"Authenticated Users" is not a real group - it is a special security principal that stands for any and all sessions that have been authenticated using some account such as a local SAM account, domain account or an account from any trusted domain, basically, any user account existent in your database.