Wireless Home Networking - Index of

Chapter 10: Putting Your Wireless Home Network to Work
To enable sharing on a Windows XP machine, follow these steps, which are
similar to those in the preceding section:
1. Choose Start➪Control Panel. When the Control Panel window opens,
double-click Network Connections.
2. Right-click the icon of the network connection over which you want to
enable File and Printer Sharing and then choose Properties from the
pop-up menu that appears.
3. On the General tab, select the check box for File and Printer Sharing
for Microsoft Networks. (If Service Pack 2 is installed, this will already
be selected.) Click OK.
This step enables your PC to share files and also printers.
You can use Windows Explorer to control file sharing on a file-by-file or
folder-by-folder basis. When you right-click any folder or file and then select
Sharing, you can control the sharing of that file or folder — only if File and
Printer Sharing has already been enabled as described in the steps above.
Setting permissions
In Windows XP, controlling the sharing of files is a bit more complex than
previous versions because of the enhanced security that comes with those
operating systems. To share folders and drives, you must be logged on as a
member of the Server Operators, Administrators, Power Users, or Users
groups. Throughout the rest of this section, we describe these user types and
then show you how to add users to your Windows XP network. If Service Pack
2 is installed for Windows XP, you also need to deal with the adjustments to
Windows Firewall that will allow connection to your machine so you can share.
Determining user types
The Server Operators group is used only on large networks that incorporate
the Microsoft Active Directory technology; if you’re trying to set up your office
computer at home and it’s configured using the Server Operators group, you
may not be able to access your home network. This is not a common situation,
but if you run into this, you’ll need to talk to your office IT personnel to get
your access settings configured — as long as your IT director isn’t Ed, who
probably won’t help you (just kidding Ed!). The groups you need to concern
yourself with are the Administrators, Power Users, and Users groups:
� The Administrators group contains the system gods. Anyone set up as
an administrator can do anything he or she wants — no restrictions. In
Windows XP, the first person you set up when installing the OS has
administrator access to the machine.
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