HomeGroup is a new feature in Windows 7 that makes networking at home or at work much simpler than it has been in the past. Friendly Computers has more information about what HomeGroup is and how it works below…
Microsoft has been trying for a long while to make home networks easy to use, with automatic connections and ready access to shared files and folders. With the Windows 7 feature known as "HomeGroup," the company seems to have succeeded. I say "seems to" because I haven't been able to explore all the ways to make homegroups malfunction, and I've come to expect eventual breakdowns. But in fact, I haven't managed to make my homegroups go wonky at all, so maybe we're finally there.
HomeGroup lets you create a home network with built-in and expandable sharing and access capabilities. It's a neat new feature of Windows 7—and it works only with Windows 7, so Vista, XP, Mac, and Linux users can't join the fun. Windows 7 lets you establish three types of networks—Home, Work, and Public—and a homegroup can exist only if the networks on all your PCs are set to Home. To configure your Windows 7 PC's network as Home, open the Control Panel and choose Network and Internet, then Network and Sharing Center (you can also access the Network and Sharing Center by right-clicking on the network icon in the system tray). Verify that under the Network icon you show "Home network." If not, click the link—Public network or Work network—and choose Home Network instead.
From that point on, you can create a homegroup. After setting your network to Home, in fact, Windows 7 takes you directly to the Create a homegroup dialog box. If your network is already set to Home, click the link named Choose homegroup and sharing options, and in the subsequent dialog box click Create.
The next step is choosing which kinds of media you want to share with other members of the homegroup. The options are pictures, music, videos, documents, and (oddly enough) printers. These options correspond with the libraries Windows 7 creates by default when it's installed on each PC, and in turn to the folders created by default in each user profile. Essentially, what you're doing by opting to share any of these items is giving other PCs in the homegroup access to the specified folders in your user profile. In my case, for example, that means
C:\Users\Neil\Pictures, C:\Users\Neil\Music, and so forth. In addition, the homegroup gives users access to theC:\Users\Public folderon your drive. You can add other shareable locations to the homegroup later, as we'll see.Once you've finished this step, Windows 7 opens a screen containing a password for your homegroup; as we'll also see, a second PC will require that password to join the homegroup. For now, be sure to store the password (you can simply highlight and copy it to a text file or an e-mail message, for example) or make a printout of the info, which includes a brief set of instructions for other users.
Click Finish and your homegroup is set up. The final dialog, Properties, gives you an opportunity to change the password you've established and access the Advanced Sharing Settings screen, but one important thing it does not allow you to do—at least from here—is add more libraries, folders, or files to the homegroup. This seems a rather strange omission, given that the point of homegroups is customizability of resource access.
