Share with Simple File Sharing

So now you know: there are actually two different ways to share out a folder in Windows XP. One is Simple File Sharing, the other Classic Sharing. However, only XP Professional can use the Classic Sharing option. If you're using XP Home, you're saddled with Simple File Sharing as the only option.

Ostensibly, SFS makes sharing out a resource very simple (as in Simple File Sharing), allowing users to make XP folders available with just a few clicks. It is intended mostly for single XP installations that are shared by multiple users, an implementation which is pretty rare.

To share out a folder with SFS, follow these steps:

1.	From Windows Explorer, right-click on the folder you want to share and choose Sharing and Security from the context menu.
2.	This will open the Properties dialog box, with the Sharing tab already selected. As shown in Figure 11-4, click the check box titled "Share this folder on the network." Figure 11-4. Sharing a folder with SFS.
3.	Give the share a name. The default share name is the same as the folder name, but this is not a requirement. You can share a folder called "Data," for example, but other computers seeing this same folder over the network might see it as "XP files."
4.	Set security with a single click. By default, the share is available as "Read-only." You can let others change the share's files with the "Allow network users to change my files" check box.

The drawback of SFS is fairly self-evident: once the folder has been shared, the configuration and security options available are very limited. More to the point, you have only two security choiceseither allowing changes or not.

As mentioned, the Home edition uses Simple File Sharing exclusively. Only Professional gives you the option to use either SFS or its more robust cousin, classic sharing, which is discussed next.