Home Networking With Windows7 — Create A Home Group

If you have more than one computer at home running Windows 7 it is very easy to share files and printers usingWindows Home Groups. When you first start Windows you will get a screen to set a network location. Click on Home network to set a Home Group.

Select what you want to share including pictures, music, videos, documents, and printers. Then click on next.

As this Home Group is created a password will be generated, write it down so that you can add other computers to this Home Group.

Click on Finish. You can now browse your library and see the files in your Home Group. When you click on the Homegroup you will see that there are no other people in the homegroup. If you would like to join another computer to the Home Group go to your control panel and choose Network and Internet then Choose homegroup and sharing options.

We are going to join our laptop now. After we click on homegroup and sharing options we get a screen that says This computer can’t connect to a home group, because we haven’t joined it to our home network yet. So click on What is a network location. Then click Home network. Once the computer has connected to our home network it asks us to join a Homegroup because it detected that there was already a home group on our network.

Once again choose what you would like to share and then click on next. This is where you enter that password we saved earlier. Then click on join and finish and now our laptop is connected to our home network. Since we shared our printer on our original home group now the laptop can access the home printer. Pretty cool, huh?

Well it gets cooler, lets say you have a media player such as Western Digital TV Live or another streaming media player. If you would like to share the files on your network go to Control Panel > Network and Internet > HomeGroup under share media devices put a check mark next to Stream my pictures, music, and videos to all devices on my network. Now you can view your photos and videos on your TV.

What if you lose your password? No problem in this same screen under Other homegroup actions you can view or change your password and configure other advanced settings. With the new Windows Home Group; networking, file sharing, sharing printers, and streaming media to other devices have all been simplified.