Help setup a home file sharing network
 

Hello, basically, we are setting up an office for our not-for-profit inside of our home.

What we want to do is set up a home network that lets us share files between our three computers.

(A) One is a desktop, our main computer, connected to our Verizon FiOS router via Wi Fi. It is running Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit.

(B) The other is an older desktop, connected via Cat-5 hardwire to the router. This computer is Windows XP Media Center Service Pack 2 (and it’s giving us a lot of problems, we may be wiping the hard drive. If we do that we’ll upgrade it to SP3) It is a piece of junk.

(C) The third is a laptop, which is sometimes connected to the router via WiFi and is running Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit. It leaves the house and office a lot, and we want it to have the files when it’s not on the local network.


We plan to follow the instructions here, and set up the network the way they explain
http://it.toolbox.com/wiki/index.php...haring_Network

But, we have several questions.

The first one is, where do the files ultimately become stores? Let’s say I make a shared folder on computer A, does the information become COPIED to computer B and C? Or is the information permanently stored on A, and it’s just being copied to B and C?

If it’s the latter, then would I have to pick one computer to always be on? And would the laptop be able to have those files if it left the house?

The files shared on computer A would show on computer B and C network drive but would only be on computer A so if you went out range with the computer C say laptop then you would not be able to get at the files .

If you want files on all computers not just in a share folder then maybe look at synchronizes files and folders between locations.

a quick google came up with this http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/downl....aspx?id=15155

Oh that looks like it will do the trick perfectly, thanks for the tip!

I looked at that, and that's really for synchronizing two physically connected drives, like a desktop and USB hard drive.

Any way to do this on a network?

it appears that SyncToy 2.1 will do networks here what I tried.

PC1 Laptop PC2 My PC i made a share folder on laptop called it PC1 and shared with right click properities advanced sharing had to change permissions for read write files . made a text file in there wrote something in it . run synctoy on PC2 only set some settings see picture ..

http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/a...psc924c0a6.jpg


Ran a sync and the File was in PC2 , edit file PC2 run sync 2.1 error attempt 2 had to change read write perrmissions on share properities , then file changed in PC1 to what I changed in PC2 .. It seems to work over networks just need to fiddle around a bit ...

Hope this helps some :D