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Homegroup and Advanced Sharing Options Configuration in Windows 7

Author: Techie Time

Homegroup Section

This section covers how to create and configure a homegroup as well as how to choose the resources that will be shared within the homegroup. To create a new homegroup, navigate to the "Control Panel" then select "Choose homegroup and sharing options" under the "Network and Internet" section.



At the homegroup screen select "Create A Homegroup" to configure your new homegroup.



On the screen, select what you would like to share with the members of your homegroup. The homegroup wizard will then proceed to create your new homegroup and will provide a randomly generated password. The provided password will be used to add other computers to your homegroup. Click on "Finish" and you will now see the current configuration settings for your new homegroup as seen below.

Advanced Sharing Settings

The homegroup options screen in Windows contains an advanced options section for sharing with homegroup users and computers. A screenshot of the homegroup options screen can be seen in the image above. Advanced sharing provides the option to configure network discovery, turn file and printer sharing on and off. turn public folder sharing on or off, set the encryption level for file sharing connections for your network, enable or disable password protected sharing and whether homegroups are managed by Windows or whether user accounts and passwords will be required to access network computers. Windows contains three types of sharing settings. These options are home, work and public. The advanced sharing options are displayed in the images below.




Network Discovery
When network discovery is enabled on a computer, the computer and shared devices can be seen by other computers on the network. Enabling this setting also allows the computer to view and access other computers and shared devices. The network discovery option requires that the DNS Client, Function Discovery Resource Publication, SSDP Discovery, and UPnP Device services must be started on each computer if network discovery is enabled. When these services are enabled, network discovery is able to communicate with Windows firewall and other network hardware or software firewalls.
File and Printer Sharing
When file and printer sharing is enabled, all shared folders and printers are accessible by users on other computers on the network. Shared folders and printers will also be displayed when accessing a computer by UNC path. For example, "\\mypc\shared" is an example of the path to a shared folder.
Public Folder Sharing
Public sharing in Windows contains the same set of configuration settings as the home or work network sharing settings. It is configured independently. Public shared folders are available to any user on the same network. If public sharing for folders is to be turned off then users on other computers on the network cannot access these shared folders. Users which are logged in to the computer which is hosting these shared folders will still be able to access the folders.
File Sharing Connections
The file sharing connections section allows for configuration of what kind of encryption is supported for shared resources. There are two options here. The two options available are 128 bit encryption or the option to only support 40 or 56 bit encryption. Certain devices do not support 128 bit encryption. 128 bit encryption is used by default in Windows and is generally supported by most computers.
Password Protected Sharing
The password protected sharing option is used to restrict access to shared resources to users that do not have a local account on the host of the shared resources. If this option is enabled, accounts from other computers which are members of the workgroup or homegroup can be added to a local group or directly to the local accounts through "Computer Management" in Windows. Turning this feature off will allow users from any computer on the network to access shared resources.
Homegroup Connections
The homegroup connections settings allow for the configuration of whether Windows will manage the connections to shared resources on the network or whether these settings will be managed by dedicated users on the network. By default Windows will managed shared resources. Generally shared resources are managed by users when customized permissions to users and group are set for the shared resources. In this circumstance the setting for Windows to manage shared resources will need to be turned off.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/operating-systems-articles/homegroup-and-advanced-sharing-options-configuration-in-windows-7-6507102.html

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