Do you have multiple PC's in your home?
Do you wish you could have one central place to store shared files?
Well if you answered yes to either of those questions this guide is for you.
What you need:
A desktop PC running Windows Vista or above. (Win 7 is what this guide is for but the same principles apply to the rest.)
Another desktop or laptop running Vista or above.
A large enough HDD
OPTIONAL: A partition making program. (There is one included with Win 7 but I prefer EASEUS.)
A recent restore point.(Just in case. )
Some time.
The first step: Optional
The first thing you are going to want to do is make a partition of your main hard drive or have a secondary hard drive available.
After this is done move on.
The Business:
What you want to do next is setup your drive and your computer to accept network drives.
To do this you are going to open start menu and type "homegroup"
Open it and select "change advanced sharing settings".
You should make the settings look like this.
You are going to want to make the settings the same on both computers.
Now after these settings have been selected you should be able to see Both computers under the "network" tab in explorer
Click the computer that isn't you current one, if it asks you for a username and password you need to fill out the username section like this "otherpcnamehere\pcusernamehere"
In the password section write the password for that user.
If it did not ask you for a password and you can see a folder called "Users" then you have saved yourself some time.
Now if you have decided to make a drive dedicated to this then go onto the computer containing said drive and open "Computer" from the start menu then select the drive you want, right click it and click "properties".
then select the tab "Sharing".
Click "Advanced sharing..." a box should show up click permissions and make it look like this.
Now apply the changes and move back to your other computer.
Go to the network tab again and see if your drive appears.
If it does, congrats you just set it up correctly.
If not post your problem and I will try to help you.
Do you wish you could have one central place to store shared files?
Well if you answered yes to either of those questions this guide is for you.
What you need:
A desktop PC running Windows Vista or above. (Win 7 is what this guide is for but the same principles apply to the rest.)
Another desktop or laptop running Vista or above.
A large enough HDD
OPTIONAL: A partition making program. (There is one included with Win 7 but I prefer EASEUS.)
A recent restore point.(Just in case. )
Some time.
The first step: Optional
The first thing you are going to want to do is make a partition of your main hard drive or have a secondary hard drive available.
After this is done move on.
The Business:
What you want to do next is setup your drive and your computer to accept network drives.
To do this you are going to open start menu and type "homegroup"
Open it and select "change advanced sharing settings".
You should make the settings look like this.
You are going to want to make the settings the same on both computers.
Now after these settings have been selected you should be able to see Both computers under the "network" tab in explorer
Click the computer that isn't you current one, if it asks you for a username and password you need to fill out the username section like this "otherpcnamehere\pcusernamehere"
In the password section write the password for that user.
If it did not ask you for a password and you can see a folder called "Users" then you have saved yourself some time.
Now if you have decided to make a drive dedicated to this then go onto the computer containing said drive and open "Computer" from the start menu then select the drive you want, right click it and click "properties".
then select the tab "Sharing".
Click "Advanced sharing..." a box should show up click permissions and make it look like this.
Now apply the changes and move back to your other computer.
Go to the network tab again and see if your drive appears.
If it does, congrats you just set it up correctly.
If not post your problem and I will try to help you.