Sharing documents off your computer on a network

How many times have you had the need to move files from one computer to another? or share files larger than what you can e-mail with your colleagues? I know, you burn the files to a CD or dump them on a flash drive in order to share them, but what about if there was an easier way, are you still reading? good! Let me show you how you can utilize the network to share files.

On a network all the computers see and talk each other, and resources between these computers can be used interchangeably. lets say you work on the communication department, and want to share a bunch of files with someone on the financial department? E-mail is not an option because the files are too large, what do you do? If I was you, I would this;

Create a directory anywhere, preferably on your “My Documents” directory. Name it whatever you want, I will name it “files” then copy the files you want to share to this directory, and then Right-click the folder and go to Sharing and Security :

Check Shared this folder. then, click on the the Permissions tab:

Under the Shared Permission options you can either give permissions to everyone, or you can add the person you want to share the files with. After you choose your options, click OK on all the windows.

Get either the computer name or IP address of your computer, by going to Start, Run and type CMD then hit Enter. Type either ipconfig or hostname and write down either the computer name or IP address.

Now is time to go to show off your geeky side to your colleague by getting the files through the network off your computer. On his computer go to Start, RUN and type either the computer name or IP address of your computer on the run command like this \\nelsonrocks and hit Enter. Your shared files should show up on windows explorer: