Can't launch executable files from shares (domain environment)

When trying to launch some .exe files from network drive (mapped share from file server) I've got the following error:

Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item.

This error occurs even though I have full security permissions on the file and full share permissions and non executable files are opening as expected. This behavior is due to IE security settings, to fix it you will need:

1) Open IE and go Tools -> Internet Options

2) Click Security tab select Local intranet and click on Sites

3) Add "file://server name" (without quotes) to the Local intranet zone, click close OK and OK.

"server name" is the name of your server where the shared files reside.

When viewing shared folder contents users should be able to see only those subfolders they have access to

When you have shares for multiple users, each of whom have permissions to different subfolders in that share, you might want to filter the view that the users would only see those contents which they can access.

To achieve this on Windows Server 2003 you'll need to install Access-based Enumeration.

When installed right click on the shared folder, go to the Access-based Enumeration tab and check the Enable access-based enumeration on this shared folder checkbox (screenshot).
Click Ok.

Downloads:
Windows Server 2003 Access-based Enumeration
Documentation

Shares and subfolders permissions

Task:
Share a folder and make some of its subfolders available to one user group and not available to another user group which also has share permissions on the root folder.

The difficulty in this was that if I share "Folder 1" for "user group 1" with full permissions, then this "user group 1" is able to access all of "Folder 1" subfolders. It is because "Folder 1" inherits the "Security" permissions from it's root (in my case it was "Users (DOMAIN\Users)" with Read & Execute, List Folder Contents and Read permissions on "D:").
You need to remove these inheritable permissions.

To do this:
Right click the shared folder "Folder 1" and click on Properties.
Go to Security tab and click on Advanced button.
Clear the Allow inheritable permissions from the parent to propagate to this object... checkbox (screenshot).
At the prompt click Remove to remove inherited permissions (screenshot) and then specify your own.