7. Alternatives to Using a Homegroup
HomeGroup security gives anyone in the group
access to any shared folder or printer. If you need to restrict access
to shared folders and printers on a user-by-user basis, or if you have
computers that don’t run either Windows 7 or 8, you might instead want
to set up the traditional Windows file sharing scheme. There are two
ways you can configure traditional sharing:
• If you have OSs other than Windows 7
or 8 on your network and you don’t need per-user security, you can turn
off Password Protected Sharing. To do this, go to the Desktop.
Right-click the network icon at the right end of the taskbar and select
Network and Sharing Center. At the left, select Change Advanced Sharing
Settings. Scroll down to All Networks and click the down arrow to open
the list. Scroll down more and select Turn Off Password Protected
Sharing.
This makes any shared folder or printer available to anybody who can connect to your network, with no passwords required at all.
• If you need to control in
detail which users can use which shared files and folders, leave
Password Protected Sharing turned on (which is the same as disabling
Simple File Sharing was on Windows XP). You will have to set up the
same user accounts with the same passwords on each of your computers so
that people can access shared folders and printers.
8. Wrapping Up
This completes the procedure for setting up
Windows networking on one Windows 8 computer. After you have
configured, connected, and—if required to—restarted each of your
computers, right-click in the extreme bottom-left corner of the screen
and select File Explorer. Look for the Network and Homegroup items at
the left edge of the Window, as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3. File Explorer has links at the left edge that let you explore your network, and your homegroup, if you have one.
If your network is up and running, and
Network Discovery is enabled, you should see one icon for every
computer you’ve connected. Double-click any icon to see what that
computer is sharing with the network.
If you set up a homegroup, the Homegroup list
will have an entry for each user who has elected to share files. There
may be entries for the other users on your own computer, as well as
users on other computers. Shared printers should already be
listed in your Devices and Printers Control Panel applet,
automatically, although if you have one or more printers that are not
connected via USB cables, you may have to take additional steps to
share them.
You’re almost done. You have just a little more reading do to:
• You’ll certainly be connecting to the Internet, and when you do, you risk exposing your network to the entire world. If you use Internet Connection Sharing or a
connection-sharing router, you’re in pretty good shape.
