Sharing Files and Folders with Those You Trust: An Overview

You definitely don't want to let unauthorized people (or files) into your system. But the power of networking lies in its ability to let you share your computers and devices, right? That means intentionally letting authorized people into your system. You want to take full advantage of an Internet connection, printer, and other resources on your network. We'll show you how. First, we'll look at sharing files and general network use.www.tartoos.com

Sharing files

You can share any kind of file on your network. For example, you might keep all your music on one computer, and maintain a big library of family photos there, too. If you want to get to those files while you're using another computer, you can share them, which allows you to "see" those files from the other computer. You might also have projects that more than one person works on—something as simple as proofreading a homework assignment, or elaborate enough to include thousands of files. You can share files and folders no matter how many files are involved, or how many people work on them.www.tartoos.com

Keep in mind that you can always control who sees which files and folders. You can leave some available to anyone, and keep others private from all but a very few people. You can also give different people different types of permission with files. For example, you can allow some people to only view files, and allow others to also change them.www.tartoos.com

Keep in mind that you can always control who sees which files and folders. You can leave some available to anyone, and keep others private from all but a very few people. You can also give different people different types of permission with files. For example, you can allow some people to only view files, and allow others to also change them.www.tartoos.com

Seeing files

After you run the Network Setup Wizard, if you selected the Classic Start menu option (right-click Start, click Properties, click Classic Start menu on the Start Menu tab), you'll see a My Network Places icon on your Windows XP desktop. Double-click that icon and you'll see a list of all the computers and folders on your network.

Naming computerswww.tartoos.com

You may decide that renaming some of the computers on your network would make it easier to keep track of them. Names like "Office," "John's," and similarly plainspoken names are useful choices. You can change a computer's name in moments. If you have the chance, running the Network Setup Wizard on each computer on your network is a good idea. Managing computer names and sharing files is much simpler after that.

To change a computer name in Windows XP www.tartoos.com

1 - Log on as an administrator to the computer you want to rename (you must log on as an administrator).
If you didn't set up the computer, you may not have administrator rights. In fact, you should only log on as an administrator when you're performing system maintenance (like setting up a network). Usually, the first person to set up a computer will have administrator rights.

To assign administrator rights to an account

Important: Don't log on as an administrator for your normal computer use. Set up a separate account with administrator rights.

Note: You may need the administrator account password. The person who set up the computer should have set this password.

            1 - Click Start and then right-click My Computer.

            2 -  In the display menu that appears, right-click Manage.

            3 - In the left pane, double-click Local Users and Groups.

            4 - Double-click Groups.

            5 - In the right pane, right-click Administrators.

            6 - Click Add to Group, and then, on the General tab, click Add.

            7 - In the text box, type the user name of the account that will have administrator rights, type the administrator password if requested, and then click OK.

            8 - In the User Accounts dialog box, click OK. 

2 - Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.

3 - Click the Computer Name tab, and then click Change.

4 - Type a new name for your computer.

Every computer on the network must have a unique name, and it can't be a name you've used for any user accounts. Also, your Internet service provider (ISP) may in some cases require you to have a certain name for one or more computers on your network as long as you have an account with them. You can also use the Computer Name tab to help identify a computer. For example, if you have several computers with similar names (like John01, John02, and so on), you can add "homework computer" or "games computer" or some other descriptor in the Description box.

Sharing a folder with everyone

You might have a folder that you want everyone to be able to see, like My Music. Perhaps it has subfolders within it, or you want to keep it where it is so your programs can always find the data in it. You can share that folder without moving or copying it into your Shared Documents folder. To do this, you may first have to disable a feature called Simple File Sharing, which is on by default.

To disable Simple File Sharingwww.tartoos.com

1 - Click Start, and then click My Computer.

2 - On the Tools menu, click Folder Options.

3 - On the View tab, under Advanced Settings, scroll to the bottom and then clear the check box labeled Use simple file sharing (Recommended).

To share a folder with everyone

1 - Click Start, and then click My Computer.

2 - Navigate to the folder you want to share.

3 - Right-click the folder, and then click Sharing and Security.

4 - On the Sharing tab, click Share this folder.

By default, the folder's permissions will be set to allow Everyone ("Everyone" is a real group name on networked computers running Windows—it literally means anyone who logs on) to view your folder. They can't make changes, though, unless you allow that.

Stop folder sharingwww.tartoos.com

If you want to make a folder private again, right-click it, click Sharing and Security, and then click Do not share this folder. To revoke specific permissions, click Permissions, select the users you want to restrict, and then select the appropriate check boxes in the Deny column.

Mapping a network drive

One advantage of using software programs on a network is that you can access huge amounts of data with simple shortcuts from the computer you use most. We'll use listening to music files as an example, but you can apply this principle to any kind of file.

You can use Windows Explorer to track multiple places on your network. If you double-click My Computer, you'll see a list of drives on the right side of the window. Probably drive A is your floppy drive, C is your hard drive, D is your CD-ROM drive, and so on. But you're not limited to these three—you can add (or map) to your computer as many network drives from across your network as you like. You can also map folders, and all of these are accessible from anywhere you see a list of folders on your computer.

Why map a network drive? To save time and searching. To find music on another computer on your network, you can open the media player that you use, click Open in the File menu, and find lists of music files from every networked computer around you—as long as those computers are shared and you've mapped those computers. Here's how:

To map a network drivewww.tartoos.com

1 - Click Start, and then click My Computer.

2 - On the Tools menu, click Map Network Drive.

3 - Click Browse.

4 - In the Browse For Folder window, navigate to the computer with the shared drive or folder you need, select that drive or folder, and then click OK.

5 - If the Reconnect at Logon check box is not selected, select it now, and then click Finish.

Note: For these instructions to work, you must map drives or folders that have been "shared," which means they have sharing permissions assigned to them. You won't see drives or folders on the network if they don't have sharing permissions; you'll see them only on the computers where they were created.

Before you click Browse, you can change the drive letter to this drive or folder by clicking the "down" arrow next to the Drive box and choosing a different letter. By default, networked drives start at Z and move backwards through the alphabet. You can see all your mapped network drives and folders and the letters associated with them in the left pane of Windows Explorer or the right pane of My Computer.

But the real time saving comes when you're using software programs. If the computers where your network drives were created are turned on, you can get to any file on them at any time. For instance, if you map to three computers with lots of music files, you can listen to all of those music files all day long from any computer on your network. Once you've mapped those network drives to your computer, you can find those files without having to chase them down and copy them to your computer. Whether you're adding attachments to e-mail or copying one file's content to another document, mapping network drives will save you time.www.tartoos.com

Sharing large media fileswww.tartoos.com

We'll wrap up our discussion of sharing resources with a quick word about sharing media on removable drives like CD or DVD drives. On a network, you can listen to music, watch movies, or access CD data files even on computers that have no CD or DVD drive. The first thing you need to do is copy the files to a shared folder, and then you can view them from other computers on the network.

For example, you might have a DVD player or larger hard disk on one computer but you want to watch a particular movie on a television or on another computer with a bigger monitor. You can download the movie file or copy a home movie file from your own DVD onto the computer with the large hard disk. Then, from the computer where you want to watch the file, you navigate to the computer where the movie file is. (You might have the computer mapped, or you might browse to it from My Network Places in My Computer.) Once you find the file, double-click it as if it were on the computer you're using and watch the movie. Keep in mind that you can't watch PAL DVDs on an NTSC TV, and that anything you want to watch from another computer you'll have to copy over to the hard drive, which isn't always possible.