Note 1: The following activity is based on a specific computer configuration. Your display will be different.
Note 2: This activity also assumes you are using the NTFS file system.
12.8 ACTIVITY: SHARING DRIVES ON A NETWORK
1 Go to the computer with a drive you wish to share. In this example, it is the Micron-pc computer.
2 Click Start. Click My Network Places. Click View workgroup computers.
Click View. Click Tiles. Double-click the Micron-pc. Click View. Click Tiles.
In this example, you are logged onto the Micron-pc computer. You see only the Printers and Faxes folder and the Scheduled Tasks folder. You do not see any drives available through My Network Places even though you are looking at the computer you are logged on to. The reason that you do not see any drives available is because you are looking at your own computer through the network. Nothing has been shared on the network.
3 Click the Back button. Double-click the Dell-czg computer icon.
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If you see a flashlight icon, that icon indicates that Windows is looking for the network connection. Once it finds it, you will see a Printers and Faxes folder and a Scheduled Tasks icons. If you look at the Address, you see that you are looking at the \\Dell-czg computer. However, you see no drives. The Dell-czg is a computer running Windows 2000 Professional.
4 Click the Back button. Double-click the Dell 8100 (Dell-fp) icon. Click View.
Click Tiles.
You see no folders or drives but you do see the printer you previ-ously shared. No drives were shared on this computer either. This computer is running Windows Me. Each version of Windows will display a slightly different view.
5 Close My Network Places. Open My Computer. Click View. Click Tiles. Right-click Drive C. Click Sharing and Security.
12.8 ACTIVITY: SHARING DRIVES ON A NETWORK
In this example, Simple file sharing is set. This means that you are sharing everything on your hard drive. As you can see, this is not recommended since you give everyone rights to everything on your hard drive. However, you can be more specific by disabling Simple file sharing.
6 Click Cancel. Click Tools. Click Folder Options. Click the View tab. Scroll to the bottom of the window.
At the bottom of the window, Use simple file sharing (Recom-mended) is selected. If you are using the FAT32 file system, you will not see this choice. When Simple file sharing is set, you cannot set more specific permissions on the drive.
7 Clear Use Simple file sharing (Recommended). Click OK. Right-click Drive C. Click Sharing and Security.
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In Windows XP Professional, as in versions of Windows, after Windows 2000 Professional, all drives on your computer, such as Drive C or D, are automatically shared using the syntax of drive letter$, such as D$ or E$. This is known as an administrative share. This type of share allows administrators to connect the root directory of a drive over the network. These drives are not shown in either My Computer or Windows Explorer. These drives are also hidden when users connect to your computer remotely. But if any user knows your computer name, user name, and password and if that user is a member of the Administrators, Backup Operators, or Server Operators group, that user can gain access to your computer over a network or the Internet, provided that the Distractive share remains a shared folder. It is shared by default.
8 Click New Share.
You may name the shared drive anything you like. However, simply calling it C is not a good idea. All computers have a C drive. You want to name it uniquely so that it can be identified on the network as the Micron’s Drive C. You may also set how many users may be allowed to share this drive at one time.
9 Click Permissions.
As you can see, Everyone has full permission to do anything to the shared drive.
10 Click the Add button. Click the Advanced button. Click Find Now.
12.8 ACTIVITY: SHARING DRIVES ON A NETWORK
Windows XP Professional provides groups, whose membership is controlled by the administrator. There is another group called Authenticated Users, whose membership is controlled by the operating system or by the domain, if you are on a domain. Authenticated Users is the same as the Everyone group. By default in Windows XP Professional, any authenticated user is a member of the Users group.
Often, an administrator will remove the Everyone group and add specific groups who may access the information so that the environment is more secure. As you can see, as you move into the networking world, administering the system becomes more and more complex. At the moment, you will simply allow Everyone access to this drive.
11 Click Cancel. Click Cancel. Click Cancel. In the Share Name text box, key in Micron-C.
In this case, you chose to name the drive by the computer brand, and you gave full access to your drive. Note that there is no space between the computer brand and the C. A hyphen was used. A space in a share name can cause
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problems in accessing the shared resource. To avoid problems, avoid spaces. The Micron is acting as the server computer. Remember that this is an example. Your drive names and availability will differ from the example.
12 Click OK. Click OK.
Now on the Micron, you have shared Drive C. You can tell by the hand under the drive icon.
13 Close My Computer. Open My Network Places. Click View workgroup computers. Double-click Micron-pc.
12.8 ACTIVITY: SHARING DRIVES ON A NETWORK
Now you see your drive represented as a folder icon. You are still the server. To test that you have made the Micron’s Drive C available to others on the network, you need to go to a client computer.
14 Close My Network Places. Go to a client computer, in this case, the Dell-czg computer. The Dell-czg is using Windows 2000 Professional as its operating system. Double-click the My Network Places icon. Double-click Computers Near Me.
You are now on the Dell-czg computer, the client, and wish to access the drive on the Micron computer. You should be able to because it is shared.
15 Double-click the Micron-pc icon.
The server computer, the \\Micron-pc wants to validate who you are. You need to connect as a user. If you have logged onto this computer before, in this work session, you may not see the password dialog box as Windows will remem-ber that you are an authenticated user.
16 If necessary, in the Connect as text box, key in Everyone. Click OK.
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Now you have access to Drive C on the Micron computer.
17 Double-click Micron-C.
You have full access to Drive C on the Micron. Both the title bar and the address (\\Micron-pc\Micron-C) tell you what computer you are accessing. You have been acting as the client computer, because you are logged on to the Dell-czg computer and you are able to access any shared resources (Drive C) of the Micron computer, in this case, the server. However, on a peer-to-peer network, you can switch roles and become the server and share your drives so that other users on the network can access your drives.
18 Click the Back button twice. Double-click the Dell-czg computer.
12.8 ACTIVITY: SHARING DRIVES ON A NETWORK
Even though you are sitting at the client computer, the Dell-czg, you cannot see any of your drives because you are looking at the Dell-czg computer through My Network Places. Since no drives are shared on the Dell-czg computer, no drives on the Dell-czg computer can be seen through My Network Places.
19 Close My Network Places. Open My Computer on the Dell. Right-click Drive C.
Click Sharing. Click New Share. In the Share name text box, key in Dell-czg-C.
Click OK. Click OK.
You now see that on the Dell, Drive C is shared. Now anyone on another computer connected to the network can access Drive C on the Dell-czg computer. You have just acted as the server.
20 Close My Computer. Open My Network Places. Double-click Computers Near Me. Double-click Dell-czg.
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As you can see, now the Dell-czg-C drive is available through My Network Places.
21 Close My Network Places. Return to the Micron-pc computer.
22 Open My Computer. Right-click Drive C. Click Sharing and Security. Click the Sharing tab. Click the down arrow in the Share name drop-down list box. Select Micron-C. Click Do not share this folder.
Since this folder is shared, you are reminded that you are removing access to the shared drive. It states that this folder is shared more than once – the share you set up and the Administrative share.
23 Click Yes. Click OK.
The share that is left is the Administrative share. If you ever re-moved this administrative share (C$), you could recreate it. Although you could recreate it (New Share/C$), it is not necessary, because each time you reboot, the administrative share is always recreated.
24 Click No. Open Drive C. Right-click the WUGXP folder. Click Sharing and Security. Click Share this folder.
12.8 ACTIVITY: SHARING DRIVES ON A NETWORK
You do not need to share your entire hard drive. You can elect to share only a folder and limit other users on the network to accessing only that folder, not your entire hard drive. In fact, that is often what users do. They opt to share a folder or folders on their hard drive but do not want to let other users access their entire hard drive. You are going to share the WUGXP folder. The folder name,
WUGXP, is the default for the share name. Since you did not change permissions, the default is full for everyone. You have given other users full access to that folder only.
25 Click Apply. Click OK. Close all open windows. Open My Network Places. Click View workgroup computers. Open the Micron-pc computer.
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As you can see, the WUGXP folder is now available for other users on the network.
26 Close all open windows. Open My Computer. Open Drive C. Open the WUGXP folder. Right-click ASTRO.TXT. Click Properties. Click the Security tab.
Because in this example the Micron-pc is using the NTFS file system, you can set permissions for each file on your system. In this example, no one is denied access to this file. Everyone may Modify, Read & Execute, Read and Write this file. Deny permissions take precedence over allow entries. If you have users who are members of more than one group, setting a Deny permission for Write will effec-tively bar them from writing this file to disk. If you deny users all permissions, they will not even be able to look at the file.
27 Click Cancel. Click Tools. Click Folder Options. Click View. Set Use simple file sharing (Recommended). Click OK.
28 Close all open windows.
You have returned to the desktop.