ADVANCED FILE-SHARING TIPS
If you’ve not yet done so, set up file sharing by clicking the network icon in the Taskbar notification area and choosing ‘Network & Internet settings’, then clicking ‘Sharing options’. Expand ‘Private’ to verify that file and printer sharing is switched on, along with network discovery. Ignore ‘Homegroup connections’, then expand ‘All Networks’ to disable public folder sharing, ensure 128-bit encryption is enabled, and switch on passwordprotected sharing for security reasons.
It’s no longer compulsory, but a good idea to verify all your computers are on the same workgroup — WORKGROUP by default, but if you change it to something else, repeat for all the PCs in your network. Type “workgroup” into the Search box and click ‘Change workgroup name’ to do so.
Forgotten which folders you’ve shared? Windows no longer displays a folder icon to indicate shared folders, but you can get a comprehensive look (including the paths to the folders themselves) by right-clicking the Start button and then choosing ‘Computer Management > Shares’. Double-click ‘Shared Folders’ for a list — right-click a share to stop sharing, or choose Properties to limit the number of users that can access the share at any time.
Want to create a secret share that’s not visible? Simply add a dollar symbol (‘$’) to the end of its name, and it won’t show up anywhere in people’s network browsers — the only way to access the share is to type its path exactly into the address bar of File Explorer.
For example: \\COMPNAME\SecretShare$. Finally, if you’re signed into Windows using a Microsoft account, when you come to access a share on that PC from an Apple Mac or Linux computer, don’t type your full email address into the username field; instead, type the name before the @, and it should connect to the share on your PC with no problems.