Drive sharing privacy question

[inflames988]

I have two "shared" storage spaces on my desktop, one a folder on one of my internal 320GB drives, and one an entire 320gb drive (external SATA). Since i will be adding my computers to a college network in just a few days, I want a way to share the folder and the drive out to my laptop (connected by a switch, or i can also use a crossover cable)....but WITHOUT sharing it to the rest of the network. Both my laptop and desktop have two ethernet ports, and both will be connected by one port to the school network and by one port to each other (agian, via a switch)...basically I want either one of two thigns:

1.) the drive to be password protected
2.) the drive to be accessible ONLY to my private network between my computers

as long as nobody else can access the drives, either of the two is fine. thanks,


inflames

[hitchface]

If you do password protection, doesn't that automatically prevent it from unwanted access? Or do you want it to be hidden?

[LeftyAce]

When you set a password for your user account, you have the option to 'protect files' I believe this is what u need. (It's off by default in XP home)

[inflames988]

where can i find this option? im running XP MCE on the deskop.

[LeftyAce]

If it's the same as XP home, go to the control panel, then to 'user accounts' and click on your account. Click 'add password' and after you set the password a window should pop up asking if you want to restrict access to files or not.

[mairving]

To make a hidden share add a $ to the end of the share name. The share is there but won't show up if someone were to browse your computer on the network.

So if you make the share name Documents$ it will be invisible but still shared. If you make it Documents then it will be visible and shared.

[inflames988]

beautiful...it worked like a charm mairving...now they see it, now they dont

to add to it, when i changed the name to something long and confusing that's hard to figure out, it told me that anyone running NT, 98, or other old windows OS'es wont be able to access it since the name is so long. In this case, I don't even think I need a password anymore. the folder name's a password in itself.

[inflames988]

edit: btw mairving, how did you learn that cool little trick? im planning to start reading alot of computer-related books soon, would live to find something about all these little quirks windows has. i may even get A+ and network+ certifications next summer...im a little young for people to consider me in IT jobs (plus i will be in school most of the year) but i still wanan know as much as i can. Im majoring in information systems (obviously enough) and may double in computer science...

[mairving]

Originally Posted by inflames988 edit: btw mairving, how did you learn that cool little trick? im planning to start reading alot of computer-related books soon, would live to find something about all these little quirks windows has. i may even get A+ and network+ certifications next summer...im a little young for people to consider me in IT jobs (plus i will be in school most of the year) but i still wanan know as much as i can. Im majoring in information systems (obviously enough) and may double in computer science...

That one is old as dirt. If you have sharing turned on and you have appropriate rights then \\computername\c$ will show the C drive in the computer. I often use that one at work if I need to pull a file off of a local machine.