Sharing files and folders between computers is one of the most common applications for a network. You can share single files, folders, even whole drives (bad idea!) if you want to.

Sharing a folder is convenient because you simply have to tell Windows to share the folder rather than tell it to specifically share every file in that folder. Windows will automatically create a folder called “Shared Documents” which has been designated to be shared on your home network. To view this folder, launch the Windows® Explorer (Start / All Programs / Accessories / Windows Explorer) and then select My Computer. Your Shared Documents folder will be present. ANY FILE you place in this folder will be available on your home network to other participating computers.

You might not want to be limited to moving everything into “Shared Folders” in order to share it, however. So, you can tell Windows to share any folder you want on your hard drive. Before continuing, please note:

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• Do not share all of Drive C.
• Do not share the Windows folder or any folder under it.
• Do not share the entire My Documents folder.
• Do not share the Program Files folder.
• Do not share the Documents and Settings folder.

Sharing any of the above will present a large security risk that could compromise your system.

OK, lt’s say you have a folder called “Music” on your computer you wish to share. Do the following:

You would first launch the Windows® Explorer (Start / All Programs / Accessories / Windows Explorer), navigate to the “Music” folder and right-click the folder once, then left click Properties.

Locate the music folder you created on drive C from the Windows® Explorer, right click and select Properties

From the window that appears, click the Sharing tab.

Check the box to Share folder on the network.

The default share name will be the name of the folder. You can change this if desired.

If “Allow network users to change my files” is checked, any user on the network can modify, rename or delete any file in the shared folder. If it is not checked, network users will be able to view and download files only, but not change them.

Once finished, click Apply then OK. The folder will then be immediately shared on the network.

Example of the instructions above for sharing a folder on your home network

You can share any single file or an entire drive using the same basic procedure: right-click, go to Sharing, and enable it by checking the box and hitting OK.

Now that you have shared some files and folders on your network, you need to know how to access them from other computers on the network. There are a few ways to do this:

• My Network Places. This folder, accessible via Explorer, contains icons that represent every shared folder it can find on your network. Opening any of these folders will show you the files contained in that folder.
• Inside Applications. The “Open File” dialog in most applications will allow you to directly open files across your network. When you select the file, just navigate to “My Network Places”, navigate to the file you want, and open it as usual.
• Mapped Network Drives. If you frequently use one of the shared resources on your network, you can reference it more conveniently if you assign an arbitrary drive letter to it. More on this below.

The files and folders available in “My Network Places” are, by default, automatically discovered by Windows. This means that when you share a new folder on your network, that folder should appear automatically in “My Network Places”. On small home networks, this is fine. However, on large networks, this feature could prove annoying as Windows will have long lags while it searches for all shared resources. Luckily, you can turn off the auto-discovery. To do so, open “My Computer” and select “Folder Options” from the “Tools” menu. Then click the View tab. The top option will read “Automatically search for network folders and printers”. Uncheck the option and save. In the future, you can still add a new resource by using the “Add Network Place” option on the left side of the “Network Places” window.

You can view all the computers currently connected to a network via the Windows® Explorer. Note: This is not to be confused with Internet Explorer, which is a web browser. To launch Windows® Explorer, click Start, All Programs, Accessories, Windows Explorer. In the left pane, click My Network Places, Entire Network, Microsoft Windows Network, Workgroup Name (this is the workgroup name you chose earlier). All computers in the network will be visible.

Note: It is normal for Windows® to pause momentarily while it examines the network to check for participating computers.

Drive mapping, as mentioned above, is a convenient tool for arbitrarily assigning a drive letter to any network resource. This is convenient for quick access, but it is also a way for making older, non network-aware, applications be able to use a shared file or folder. The process of assigning a drive letter to a shared resource is referred to as “mapping”.

To create a drive mapping, do the following:

1. Right-click on My Computer or “My Network Places” and select “Map Network Drive” in the pop-up menu. You can also access this from the Tools menu in Windows Explorer.
2. Select the letter you wish to assign to the shared resource. Windows will only allow you to select letters which are not already in use. Letters range from A to Z, however your hard drives and CD drives will all take up drive letters as well.
3. For Folder, you can type in the name of the resource you wish to share. Alternatively, you can use the Browse button to go find the folder. The resource name will be in the form of \server\folder. “server” will be the name of the computer on which the folder actually resides, and “folder” will be the name of the folder.
4. If you want Windows to automatically connect to this resource, select “Reconnect at Login”. This will make Windows re-form the same mapping every time you boot up, using the same drive letter.

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