Sharing Files and Folders Across Your Network

Once you have your network up and running, it's time to take advantage of it by copying or moving files from one computer to another. To share files between the PCs on your network, you have to enable Windows XP's file sharing on the PC that contains those files. You do this by following these steps:

1. Use My Computer to navigate to the folder that contains the file you want to share.
   
   

2. Right-click the folder icon and select Sharing and Security from the pop-up menu; this displays the Properties dialog box.
   
   

   caution

   

   Be cautious about turning on file sharing. When you let a folder be shared, anyone accessing your network can access the contents of the folder.

3. Select the Sharing tab, shown in Figure 8.3.
   
   

   Figure 8.3. Enable file sharing so that other computers can access the files in a particular folder.

   

   
   

4. Check the Share This Folder on the Network option.
   
   

5. Click OK when done then repeat this procedure for every folder you want to share on every computer connected to your network.
   
   

The Absolute Minimum

Here are the key things to remember about networking and the Internet:

• To share information or hardware between two or more computers, you have to connect them in a network.

• There are two basic types of networks wired and wireless (using radio frequencies).

• The quickest, easiest, and cheapest way to put together a home network is to use a commercial home networking kit.

• Once you have all the networking hardware installed and connected, use Windows XP's Network Setup Wizard to configure all the PCs on your network.

• To share folders between computers on your network, enable Windows XP's file sharing feature.