13.4. Sharing Your Own Folders The Shared Documents folder is all very well and good, but it's generic. When you feel ready to flex your technical muscles ever so slightly, it's easy enough to "publish" any of your folders or disks for inspection by other people on your network. The trick is to use the Properties dialog box, like so: -
Locate the icon of the folder or disk that you want to share . Your disk icons, of course, appear when you choose Start  My Computer. You can share any kind of diskhard drive, floppy, CD-ROM or Zip drive, and so on. Sharing an entire disk means that every folder on it, and therefore every file, is available to everyone on the network. If security isn't a big deal at your place (because it's just you and a couple of family members , for example), this feature can be a time-saving convenience that spares you the trouble of sharing every new folder you create. On the other hand, people with privacy concerns generally prefer to share individual folders . By sharing only a folder or two, you can keep most of the stuff on your hard drive private, out of view of curious network comrades. For that matter, sharing only a folder or two does them a favor, too, by making it easier for them to find files you've made available. This way, they don't have to root through your entire drive looking for the appropriate folder. -
Right-click the disk or folder icon; from the shortcut menu, choose Sharing and Security . The Sharing tab of the Properties dialog box opens (Figure 13-6). (The shortcut menu includes the Sharing command only if you've set up the computer for networking, as described in the previous chapter. And if you don't see a Sharing and Security command, just choose Properties from the shortcut menuand then, in the resulting dialog box, click the Sharing tab.) If you're trying to share an entire disk, you now see a warning to the effect that, "sharing the root of a drive is not recommended." Click the link beneath it that says, "If you understand the risk but still want to share the root of the drive, click here" and then proceed with the next step. -
Turn on "Share this folder on the network" (see Figure 13-6) . The other options in the dialog box spring to life. -
Type a name for the shared disk or folder . This is the name other people will see when they open their My Network Places windows . Make this name as helpful as possible. For example, you may want to name the kitchen computer's hard drive Kitchen Documents Drive . (If any of the other PCs on your network aren't running Windows XP, the shared folder's name can't be longer than twelve characters , and most punctuation is forbidden. You can type it here, all right, butas a warning message will tell youthe other machines won't be able to see the shared disk or folder over the network.) Figure 13-6. Here's the Sharing tab for a disk or folder. (The dialog box refers to a "folder" even if it's actually a disk.) You can turn on "Share this folder on the network" only if "Make this folder private" is unchecked (as is the case here); after all, if a folder is private, you certainly don't want other network citizens rooting around in it.  -
Turn off "Allow network users to change my files," if you like . If the "Allow network users to change my files" checkbox is turned off , you create a "look, don't touch" policy. Other people on the network can open and read what's inside this disk or folder, but won't be able to save changes, rename anything, delete anything, or deposit any new files. Otherwise , your co-workers can theoretically run wild, trashing your files, renaming things at random, and painting a mustache onto your face in the JPEG family photo.
Tip: Turning off the "Allow network users to change my files" checkbox isn't much of a security safeguard. True, other people on the network won't be able to change what's in your folderbut there's nothing to stop them from saving copies of your files on their own hard drives . They can then do with them whatever they like. In other words, if you don't want people to see or distribute what's in your folders, turn off sharing completely.
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Click OK . As shown in Figure 13-7, the icon changes for the resource you just shared. It's also gained a new nickname: you may hear shared folders geekily referred to as shares . Figure 13-7. When you share a folder or a disk, a tiny hand cradles its icon from beneatha dead giveaway that you've made it available to other people on the network. 
13.4.1. Notes on Sharing The preceding steps show you how to make a certain folder or disk available to other people on the network. The following footnotes, however, are worth skimming, especially for Windows 2000 veterans : -
You can't share individual filesonly entire folders or disks. -
The "Share this folder on the network" checkbox is dimmed for all folders if your PC is not, in fact, on the networkor, more specifically , if you haven't experienced the thrill of the Network Setup Wizard described on Section 13.1. -
Unless you specify otherwise, sharing a folder also shares all of the folders inside it. Your "Allow network users to change my files" setting gives permission to change files in all of those folders, too. If you right-click one of these inner folders and inspect the Sharing tab of its Properties dialog box, you'll find the Sharing checkbox turned off, which can be a bit confusing. But you'd better believe itthose inner folders are actually shared, no matter what the checkbox says. -
On the other hand, it's OK to right-click one of these inner folders and change its sharing settings. For example, if you've shared a folder called America, you can make the Minnesota folder inside it off-limits by making it private (Section 12.2.4). Similarly, if you've turned off "Allow network users to change my files" for the America folder, you can turn it back on for the Minnesota folder inside it. -
You're not allowed to share important system folders like Windows, Program Files, and Documents and Settings. If you've set up your PC with multiple user accounts (Chapter 12), you can't share folders that belong to other people, eitheronly your own stuff. 13.4.2. Hiding Folders If a certain folder on your hard drive is really private, you can hide it so that other people on the network can't even see it. The secret is to type a $ symbol at the end of the share name (see step 4 on Section 13.4). For example, if you name a certain folder My Novel, anyone else on the network will be able to see it. But if you name the share My Novel$, it won't show up in anybody's My Network Places window. They won't even know that it exists. (It still shows up on your machine, of course. And it will also be visible to other network computers if you shared the disk on which the folder sits.)  |
