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Sumukha

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Windows 7 Homegroup - Sharing Personal Files (not Public)

Hello,

I am desperately trying to share files in a Homegroup.
By standard, Homegroup shared the files located in the Public Folders.
I cannot find an easy way to enable sharing  the personal user files.
Machines are in one Workgroup, protected by a McAfee security suite.
Even with switching off the firewall, marking the Documents > My Documents folder as shared with Homegroup (not the Public ones), the message 'access not granted, talk to your administrator' shows up. File Sharing is enabled, Homegroup advanced sharing without password for everyone w network access.
Even the 'share with everyone' setting (instead of  share with Homegroup read/write) over the network locations link does not help.

Wasn't this supposed to be easy in Win 7?

Thanks
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johnb6767
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What if you add the folders you want to share to the Libraries?

And can you see ANY shared files across the Homegroup?

Personally, I am not a fan of the HG..... I use the old methods of sharing (Advanced Sharing in Windows 7....)

There is a Homegroup troubleshooter you could run to make sure there are no problems with HG.....
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Sumukha

ASKER

The folder is already a part of the libraries, and I already ran the trouble shooter.

Public folders can be seen across the HG.

Can you let me know the advanced sharing settings you are using?
Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Network and Sharing Center\Advanced sharing settings

Turn ON File and Printer Sharing
Turn ON Public Folder Sharing
Password Protected Sharing is ON
and under HomeGroup Connections, I have "Use user accounts and passwords to connect to other computers" enabled......

This is basically like XP Pro. When you right Click a folder, you select Sharing, and at the bottom there is an Advanced Sharing button, which brings up the security Tab, that you are probably familiar with.

Keep in mind, you need to have matching users on each machine. So if PC1 has 5 user accounts, those IDENTICAL (including the passwords) accounts should be on each machine. You can still hide them from the logon screen, but you need to be able to authenticate them. Thats how it is done against the remote machine that you are connecting to, against its local SAM.

Windows 7 File Sharing
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Share-files-with-someone

Specifically....
The section titled "To share files and folders on a workgroup or a domain"...

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ASKER

Thanks, but the videos did not show anything that I already tried, it also mainly refers to the public folders - I want to share the personal folders.
You are mentioning that you need to have matching users on each machine. That is something I never really understood.
If you have  computer 1 with user Harry and computer 2 with John as user, I would have to add a user account Harry to computer 2  with the same pw as on the computer 1 and John will be able to access/change Harry's files on computer 1?
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johnb6767
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ASKER

Makes sense. Will try it out.
One last question:
"You can still hide them from the logon screen, but you need to be able to authenticate them."
How to hide an account from the login screen?
Hide a User from the Welcome Screen in Windows XP
http://www.petri.co.il/hide_a_user_from_the_welcome_screen_in_windows_xp.htm

Still works in Win7 if not mistaken.... You have to create the keys though......
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ASKER

Thanks for explaining!
Anytime!