• Microsoft Vista Home Networking Setup and Options
The most daunting part of upgrading to Windows Vista may be trying to figure out where in the layers of menus the networking and file-sharing options are hidden.
• Tips for Securing Your Home Router
Seemingly minor and easily overlooked settings can still have profound security implications. Here are some steps you can take to make sure your wired or wireless home router — and by extension, your network — is as secure as possible.
Most Popular Reviews
• Microsoft Windows Home Server
If you have a home network, you'll welcome the easy file sharing, remote access and the image-based backup features of Windows Home Server.
• Iomega StorCenter Network Hard Drive
Iomega's fourth generation StorCenter Network Hard Drive brings many of the features found in higher-end storage devices down to an attractive price.
• MikroTik's The Dude
This free tool delivers many of the same capabilities that you'd find in pricey network monitoring tools. As long as you don't mind tinkering, The Dude is a decent network utility that should be worth the download.
Windows Vista Password Protected File Sharing
Once you're ready to start sharing your files and folders in Windows Vista, the best step for security is to turn on password protected sharing
By Vangie Beal
Once you are ready to start sharing your files and folders
in Windows Vista, the best step
for security is to turn on password protected sharing, which is a feature you
access through your Network & Sharing Center. The
options are quite basic; use the radio check buttons to choose password protected
sharing on or off. With the password protected sharing feature on,
only users with a login and password can access the shared files and folders.
Creating User Accounts For Password Protected Sharing:
To create user accounts: Click the Start Orb, and select Control Panel.
Here you choose 'User Accounts and Family
Safety'.
The first selection in User Accounts and Family
Safety is Add or Remove User Accounts. This brings up
your accounts management screen. Choose Create New Account.
When you create a new user account you
will have two options for account type:
Standard User: Can use most
software and change system settings that do not affect other users or
the security of the computer.
Administrator: Complete access to
the computer and can make any desired changes.
After you have created the desired accounts, go back in to
User Accounts from
the Control Panel and choose Manage Another Account.
Setup a password for each user account you created. This done simply by clicking on the user name and
choosing the Create
Password option. Enter in the desired password and then select Accept Changes. You will need
to create usernames and passwords for users on any PC that you plan to share files on to
be accessible to other PCs on your network.
Turn on password protected sharing through your
'Network & Sharing Center'
Choose "User Accounts and Family
Safety" from the Control Panel
Choose 'Create New Account
from the Add or Remove User Accounts menu.
Select a user from 'User Accounts' to set passwords and
permissions
Once you have successfully created user accounts, you then
can select which files, folders and devices on your system that you will share
out with other users.
To
do this open Windows Explorer and right
click on the file or folder and select 'Properties'. Under the Sharing tab, select 'Sharing' and then choose
'Share'. This will bring up a new
window where you have the option to Stop Sharing or Change Sharing Permission.
If you are using Password Protected Sharing you will need to go a
step further and assign users who you want to allow access to the
shared file.
From a drop-down list you can choose single users by name, or you can select "Everyone in
this list" if you want all user accounts to have access to the
folder or file. Once you have added a user to
the list for this share, you can also change their permission level to reader,
co-owner, or contributor.
Using the Pre-Defined Public Share Folders For those who don't want to go in and set share properties on multiple folders
on your PC, you can also copy or move files to your "Public Folder" and share
from that location. This allows you to turn sharing on within the directory of
folders named 'Public' and you simply put all files you want shared into
those directories. In this
case anyone with a user account and password on your computer, as well as
everyone on your network, will be able to see all the files in your Public
folder and subfolders.
Sharing A Printer Setting up a printer is also an intuitive and simple process. From the
Network Sharing center under Printer Sharing, you simply turn on printer sharing
from the computer the printer is connected to. If you have password
protected sharing on, your access to the network printer will also require users
to be logged in (with their password) to access.
Summing It Up
Microsoft Vista offers users more control and access to network settings through
the new and rather easy-to-navigate Network & Sharing Center, which, if you
will, can be considered your lifeline to file sharing and network management in
Vista. Vista does indeed offer some new file-sharing features not found in
XP, and we also didn't have any problems with sharing between Vista and XP
systems. The Network & Sharing Center offers a whole
new interface for getting your network communications going, but once you've
navigated through the options and menus a few times to get familiar with them,
its a relatively painless process.
Use our feedback form to
submit your questions on home or SOHO networking
issues. We cannot guarantee to answer every question we get, but we’ll
consider them all.
