Sharing Files on a Windows Home Network

Ever since windows for workgroups 3.11 you have had the
ability to access files and printers located on other computers on your local/home network.

How it is done and how it works has changed very little since those days and yet most home network users are totally unaware of it and continue to use the modern sneaker net methods of USB flash drives or CD/DVDs.

Although it is very easy to share files you should remember that there are correct ways and incorrect ways of doing it.

Because this article is meant for beginners we will first do the sharing and then talk about security for shared folders.

Sharing Files

Firstly you share files indirectly by enabling sharing on the folder that contains the files.

This means that all of the files in that folder are shared and so you need to pay attention to what files are in the folder.

To share a folder on a windows XP computer simply right click the folder and click sharing a security.

Click the box “share this folder on the network”.

The share name defaults to the folder name but you can change it if you want to.

I tend to leave them the same unless the original folder name unless it is very long and/or contains spaces.

If you look at the folder you can see a hand underneath it indicating that is is being shared.

Sharing folders makes it easy to transfer files between computer and although sharing is relatively easy it is a security risk and you should be careful what you share.

File Sharing Security Tips

1. Only Share the Folders you need to share
2. Never share the root of the drive.
3. Don’t allow network users to change the files in the
   shared folder unless you really need to
4. If you are using a wireless home network make sure you
   have wireless security setup.
5. Remember shared level security is very basic. For better
   control use the share on a NTFS partition and control the
   security through the file system security provided by NTFS.
6. Remember file attributes still apply and a file with the
   read only attribute is read only even when accessed over a
   network share.

Resources and Related Articles:

• Windows XP Simple Sharing, Security and Force Guest
• File and Print Sharing in Windows Vista