Windows 7 has a new feature called HomeGroup, which is really another word for home network. Windows 7 has really made it easy to connect to other computers in the same household that are also running Windows 7.
To get started, go to the start>control panel and then click on the Network and Internet section, finally select HomeGroup.
Here’s where you choose what you want to share with other computers on your network.
As you can see from the graphic below, Win 7 makes it easy to share a variety of documents, media and even printers.
Windows assigns your network password to you. It’s viewable by anyone in your network simply by going to the Network And Sharing Center and clicking on ‘show password’. You can keep the one given to you or change it. Write it down or print it out and take it to the next computer on the network and follow the instructions below…
If more users, libraries or printers are added to the network later, follow the instructions below to add them into your HomeGroup.
After you’ve set up sharing on the computers in your network, you’ll want to access them to play music or view documents. Simply go to Windows Explorer and click on the HomeGroup icon and it will expand to show you what is available. Click and enjoy.
I’ve been using HomeGroup just a couple of days now. It seems to be working well. By that, I mean I can click on my Win 7 folder icon and see that my HomeGroup is still in my network. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the new sharing feature in iTunes, but it’s not worked very reliably for our network, so I’m glad we can share our music the Microsoft way.