Quick Guide to XP Simple File Sharing
Not all that long ago
it was unusual to find a computer in a home environment and small
offices had one machine that was shared by the staff. Now, multiple
computers are common both in the home and office along with
portables which connect in any number of ways from docking stations
to wireless setups. It's only natural that this proliferation would
give rise to the need for sharing files and printers, not only on a
single local machine but on a series of networked computers. This
page doesn't cover every nuance of Simple File Sharing (SFS), but if
you want to share folders, files, and a printer and connect to the
Local Area Network (LAN), this should get you started.
Install the
Operating System
Obviously, you need
either the Home or Professional version of Windows XP installed
since Simple File Sharing is exclusive to XP. With the Home version,
SFS is the only choice for file sharing. In XP Pro, you can disable
SFS and change to a file sharing and permission system similar to
Windows 2000, but only if you are using NTFS rather than FAT32.
Since Windows 95 and 98 are well on the way to obscurity and Windows
Me should never have existed on any planet, I won't get into the FAT
versus NTFS and multi-booting issues other than to say if you are
considering using FAT32, go to the Microsoft website and search the
Knowledge Base for articles about NTFS until you are convinced to
dump FAT32 and upgrade any systems that require its use.
Add Users and Set
User Types
The installation phase
complete, XP will prompt for user names for the local computer. Add
all the user account names and let the Welcome Screen load. If you
only add one name, XP will load directly to the desktop, bypassing
the Welcome Screen. Once XP has loaded I suspect your first order of
business will be to get rid of the hideous default desktop
background, but after that's done navigate to the Users section of
Control Panel. All the accounts you added previously will be
displayed. The user accounts created during setup will be shown as
Computer Administrator accounts. If they need to be downgraded to
Limited User accounts this is the time to make the change. Finally,
make sure each user account is password protected. It's easier to do
it now rather than when you are setting files as private and the
system prompts you to create a password.
Set Sharing and
Security Preferences
Since it's been used
before, and I'm not against something that works, I'll use the good
old electrical switch analogy for Simple File Sharing. It's
basically an on/off switch affair. There aren't many three-way or
dimmer switches in SFS. Each user needs to log in to XP. This
creates the special set of folders for each users personal profile
(C:\ Documents and Settings\YourUserName) where their personal
documents are stored. Once this is done, decide if you want to set
your personal folders private. To do so, right click the folder,
select Sharing and Security and select the Make This
Folder Private checkbox.
Here are some guidelines:
Individual User
Guidelines
-
The Make This
Folder Private option is available only within
your user profile. Simply put, if the folder doesn't reside in
C:\Documents and Settings\YourUserName or a subfolder of that
location it cannot be made private. Any application generated
data that defaults to a location outside your user profile needs
to be either pointed to your profile or moved there by hand if
it's to be kept private.
-
Any protected
folder or file moved or copied from within your profile to a
location outside your profile assumes the security settings of
the folder where it is moved.
-
Once you select the
location in your profile to apply the Make This Folder
Private
option, all folders and files beneath this location are
private. Individual files and folders cannot be singled out to
be shared.
-
Finally, the on/off
analogy, or all or nothing applies when Make This Folder
Private is applied. Once the user sets the permission, the
user is the only one who has access to the files. No other user,
Administrator or Limited, may access the folders or files.
Shared Documents
Folder Guidelines
-
The Shared
Documents
folder is a specialty folder XP creates for all local users to
gain access to documents which have been placed in it or one of
its subfolders. Shared Documents and its subfolders are
located in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users. This group of
folders cannot be set with the Make This Folder Private
permission to ensure access is available to all users.
-
To aid in
organizing files in Shared Folders, any number of
subfolders can be added to its organizational structure, the
most useful setup generally being a separate folder named for
each user to make individual shared documents available.
Disk, Removable
Storage, and Other Drives
By default, all of the
drives on the local machine are available to all local machine users
and they cannot be made private. To set a security restriction on a
file or folder on the drive it has to be moved to a location within
a user profile that has the Make This Folder Private
permission set. Drives can be shared on the network by right
clicking the drive and using the [Sharing and Security...] option.
There will be a warning displayed about understanding the risks of
sharing the root of a drive. Click the warning and the sharing
Property Sheet opens. Check the box next to Share This Folder On
The Network and enter a share name. If the share name is
longer than 12 characters, you get a warning the share won't be
accessible by computers running Windows 98SE/Me/NT 4.0 or earlier
operating systems. My suggestion is dump the Windows 98SE/Me/NT 4.0
or earlier operating systems and use whatever file name you want,
but I digress.
If you want the shared
drive hidden from My Network Places and Network Neighborhood on the
network computers, assign a share name that ends with a [$] sign,
keeping in mind the 12 character limit mentioned earlier.
HiddenDrive$ would be acceptable, TheHiddenDrive$ would not be
visible to the Windows 98SE/Me/NT 4.0 or earlier operating systems.
The last decision is
whether or not to allow network users to change files on the shared
drive. Check the Allow Network Users To Change My Files box
if you wish to allow this option, but bear in mind 'changing files'
includes deleting files. When they are deleted, they are deleted for
good, not sent to the Recycle Bin. Use caution when considering this
option.
Connect To The
Network
How you connect to the
network depends on the type of connection you have between the
individual computers, internet connection, whether you are using a
router, and a number of other factors. The Network Setup Wizard will
sort through them, providing excellent help documentation and
graphical representations of different connection possibilities.
To start the Network
Setup Wizard:
Click [Start] [Control Panel] [Network and Internet Connections]
Under [Pick A Task...] click [Set Up Or Change Your Home Or Small
Office Network]
The Network Setup Wizard will open.
There have been many
complaints that after running the Network Setup Wizard the
local machine was still unable to connect to the network and share
files and printers. In most cases, this is because the Wizard has
either activated the Internet Connection Firewall (ICF), or
the name of the network workgroup has been entered incorrectly. All
the computers on the network must be a part of the same workgroup to
be visible to the other computers. How you connect to the internet
and the network will determine whether ICF is needed, but as a
general rule, if you connect through a Local Area Network (LAN)
which uses a hardware router (i.e. LinkSys products) or a software
router (i.e. Internet Connection Sharing) you do not want ICF
enabled.
To disable Internet
Connection Firewall:
Click [Start] [Control Panel] [Network and Internet Connections]
[Network Connections]
Right click the LAN or High-Speed Internet connection and click
[Properties]
On the Local Area Connection Properties sheet, select the
[Advanced] tab.
Remove the checkmark from the box in the Internet Connection
Firewall section and click [OK].
Test the network
connection again to see if a connection is now possible. Once the
connection has been established, I strongly suggest you visit
GRC, a website owned by Steve Gibson, and run the Shields Up
utility. It will test your connection and probe the ports on the
computer to see if your computer is protected from outside
intrusions. Read the rest of the Shields Up pages as well. They
contain a wealth of information.
One popular
misconception about disabling Internet Connection Firewall is that
programs on your machine can call home without your knowledge or
Trojan Horse programs can connect to outside machines without you
being aware of the outbound traffic. The truth is, ICF protects only
against inbound traffic and connections. It has no ability at all to
monitor or guard against outbound traffic. To do this you need a
third party firewall. A search of the internet will turn up many
offerings, many free for non-commercial use. Zone Alarm, Symantec,
and many other companies market excellent firewalls. The GRC site
mentioned above has excellent information on firewalls also, well
worth the time to read. I also suggest reading the following
Knowledge Base Articles from Microsoft.
Description of Internet Connection Sharing in Windows XP (Q310563)
How to Enable Internet Connection Sharing on a Home or Small
Office Network Connection in Windows XP (Q314066)
Description of File Sharing and Permissions in Windows XP
(Q304040)
The Internet Connection Firewall Can Prevent Browsing and File
Sharing (Q298804)
Adding the Shared
Printer Connection
Adding a printer is
simple once the network connection is established. Click [Start]
[Printers and Faxes] and [Add A Printer] under the Printer Tasks
section on the left side of the screen. If the Printers Tasks
section isn't visible, click the Folders button on the top toolbar
and it will appear. Clicking [Add A Printer] opens the Welcome to
the Add Printer Wizard. The Wizard will ask if you're installing
a local printer attached to this computer or a network printer
attached to another computer. Ensure that the printer you want to
connect to is powered on and make your selection. The next screen
will have a browse option, or you can type type the printer location
if you know it. Browsing is much easier and a list of all network
printers will be presented in the next screen. Select the printer
you want and it will be installed or added to your printer list. Run
the Wizard again if there is more than one printer to be added and
make the selection for which printer will be the default.
Simple File Sharing
Really Is Simple
That's it. Simple File
Sharing is in place and functional. There are some tweaks you'll
undoubtedly make as you use the local and network machines and
resources, but the basics don't really change from this initial
setup. After using SFS for a period of time you find that you spend
more time than you'd like shuffling files between shared and
non-shared folders, or that the security it provides isn't
sufficient for your situation, it might be time to look into NTFS
Permission Sharing and Active Control Lists based on the Windows
2000 style file permissions. Unlike SFS where it's pretty hard to
screw things up, NTFS permission style sharing can be mucked up by a
seasoned professional with the greatest of ease, but it does provide
a level of security and control that Simple File Sharing was never
intended to offer or duplicate.
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