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Home Networking Basics, part 4

Sharing Files and Printers on Your Home Network

And, now we get to the second-most useful thing about having a home network -- now you can share files between computers and can share printers.

With Microsoft Windows in any of its flavors since Windows 95, sharing files and printers between computers has been pretty easy. Windows even lets you "name" the directories and printers differently for sharing than they might be named on your computer.

There is one significant difference when you get to Windows XP, though. Windows XP can share directories and printers, and can recognized shared directories and printers on other computers, that have names longer than twelve characters. Windows 95, 98 and Me can't find them if they have more than 12 characters in their "share name."

The basic steps to file sharing are to:

1. Name your computers. This should already be done as part of the initial installation/startup of Windows, but you might want to change these names.
2. Check to see that all computers on your network have the same "Workgroup" name. Microsoft's file & printer sharing programming works within the same Workgroup. Also, change the workgroup name from the default "workgroup" or "mshome" to something more unique and personal.
3. Turn on file and printer sharing on the computers that want to share, or to access shared, files and/or printers;
4. Turn on sharing for any directories you want to share -- this is generally done by selecting the directory in Windows Explorer, right-clicking on it, and selecting the "Share" option. Note that you can share as "read-only" without allowing someone else to "change" (modify, delete, etc) the files in your shared drive.
5. You can also share an entire partition, including the C: partition. Windows will suggest that you do not do this, as it could be a security risk. Normally, you will have some directories that you may allow another computer to write to, but normally you would not want them capable of writing to anywhere on your C: partition.
6. Turn on sharing on your printer via the Printers icon, which is found on the Start button's options. Once you've selected the printer, you can activate sharing on it. This is done with a right-click and selecting the Share option, similar to the way a directory is shared.
7. If you are running the Sunbelt Personal Firewall, or almost any other software firewall, you will have to set your software firewall to recognize the other computers on your home network as "trusted" in order to make "File and Printer Sharing" work. I recommend that you run a "two-way" software firewall to protect your self. The Windows XP built-in firewall is only one-way, so it does not meet my recommendations. My personal firewall choice, and the one I recommend, is the Sunbelt Personal Firewall.

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