Windows Vista Annoyance #3: File / folder sharing between computers on a network

(See also my other Vista Annoyance posts – turning off User Account Control, turning on Flip and Flip / Window Switcher, turning off Windows Security Alerts, getting an older program to work with Vista, and turning on Windows Aero.)

I always tell my daughters to share nicely. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t — it’s always quite a struggle. But computers — I expect them to share nicely without a struggle if I tell them to. With the new Vista operating system, however, it was quite a struggle.

See, my family and I have three home computers.  Under the old Windows XP system, it wasn’t too difficult to get these computers to share. But now I’ve got Vista on two computers and still have XP on another two. And hoo-boy, a lot of steps are involved to get the Vista-equipped computers to share files and folders. Nearly all of it is listed in a somewhat helpful Technet page by Microsoft, some of which I shamelessly plagarize below — including photos.

Here’s how. (This post assumes that your computers are already connected to a network — i.e., they’re all already able to browse the Internet using the same router.)

1. Open the Network and Sharing Center window by clicking on the Windows orb in the lower left corner, and then either right-clicking on Network and selecting “Properties”, or opening the Control Panel and double-clicking “Network and Sharing Center.” See picture below (click it for a larger version).
   
2. If your network type is “Public,” you need to change it to “Private”:
   1. To the right of the network name and location type, click Customize.
   2. In the Set Network Location dialog box, click Private, and then click Next.
   3. In the Successfully set network settings dialog box, click Close.
3. Under “Sharing and Discovery” in the bottom half of the Network and Sharing Center window, you need to turn all the settings from “Off” to “On” by clicking on the down arrow next to each setting, clicking on “Turn on …”, and clicking on “Apply.” But see some pointers below:
   1. For the “Password protected sharing” setting: you may want to leave this “On” or turn “Off” at your discretion. (I turned mine off.)
   2. For the “Public folder sharing” setting:
      1. If you want to share the public folder so that other computers on the network can access the Public share to open files, but not create or change files, click Turn on sharing so anyone with network access can open files. This is the default setting.
      2. But if you want to share the public folder so that other computers on the network can access the Public share to open files and also create or change files, click Turn on sharing so anyone with network access can open, change, and create files.
4. You’re done with the Network and Sharing Center window. Close it via the “X” button.
5. Click the Windows orb at the lower left corner of your computer, and click on Computer.
6. In the Computer window, navigate to the folder containing the file(s) or folder(s) that you want to share — e.g., “Pictures” or “Documents” or a specific file or folder within. Note: don’t open the folder itself that you want to share — just navigate to the folder that contains this folder.
7. Right-click the folder that you want to share, and then click Share. The File Sharing window is displayed. (Click picture for a larger version.)
   
8. If you have password protected sharing enabled: Use the File Sharing window to select which users can access the shared folder and their permission level. To allow all users, select Everyone in the list of users. By default, the permission level for a selected user is Reader. Users cannot change files or create new files in the share. To allow a user to change files or folders or create new files or folders, select Co-owner as the permission level.
9. If you have password protected sharing disabled (like I do): Click the drop-down arrow inside the blank field in the File Sharing window, and select the Guest or Everyone account. Click “Add.” Then for that new account, click on the down arrow under “Permission Level” to change it to Co-owner (if you want anybody to read and modify files) or leave it at “Reader” (if you want other computers to just read but not modify your files). NOTE: this is where I got stuck before!
10. Click “Share”, then “Done.”
11. Ta-da! You should now be able to view the contents of this folder from any other computer in the network!

CRITICAL NOTE: If you selected “Everyone” when sharing a folder, you’re also making its contents available to any computer that joins this network. Many households, including mine, have wireless Internet via a wifi router. If you don’t have WEP encryption turned on, then I could just drive up and park on the street near your home, open my laptop, let it join your network via your wifi, and then nose around through your files. It’s particularly important that you have WEP encryption turned on for your wifi network. I plan to do a blog post about this soon.