How to Share files with HomeGroup in Windows 7

This video will demonstrate the Sharing files procedure with HomeGroup in Windows 7.

Have you ever wanted to share photos or music with on your home network but weren't quite sure how do it? Hi, I'm Paul Pardi, a writer on the Windows team.

In the next five minutes, I'm going to show you two ways, using Public Folders and HomeGroup, that can simplify the way you share files and folders with other people on your home network.

If you've used shared folders in WindowsXP, you can continue to use them in Windows 7, but they're now called Public Folders. Let's suppose I want to share recent vacation photos with other family members who use this computer.

In Windows 7, I simply drag the photos I just grabbed from my camera to Public Pictures. Now members of my family can access those pictures from their accounts by finding them in the Public Pictures folder.

Public Folders are handy, but they require you to move files around, which you may not want to do. With HomeGroup, a new feature in Windows 7, you can share files and folders without having to move them to a public folder.

Let's see how HomeGroup works. If you already have a Windows 7 computer on your network, you may have a HomeGroup. To check whether one already exists, open HomeGroup.

My network doesn't have a HomeGroup so I'll create one. HomeGroup is all about sharing. So I'll first need to choose which items I want to share.

I'm going to share my pictures, music and video libraries with other members of my HomeGroup. Don't know what a library is? Don't worry. A library is just a collection of folders that contains your music, pictures and documents.

Now that I've shared items, Windows shows me a password which others will need to join the HomeGroup. I can always display the password later if I need to.

On the Settings screen, I can adjust which items I'm sharing And even choose to send media directly to programs and devices on my HomeGroup.

This is where I can view or change the HomeGroup password as well. Okay, so the HomeGroup is set up and now I'm sharing my libraries with others on my home network.

Hi, I'm Kim Douglas, another writer on the Windows team. My computer is also on this network so I'm going to join the HomeGroup that Paul set up and share some of my libraries.

Windows 7 will detect that it exists on our network and I can join. First, I'll choose which items I'd like to share. In addition to my pictures, music, videos and printer, I also want to share my documents so Paul can access them.

Next, I need to type in the password that I received from Paul since he created the HomeGroup. I have now joined the HomeGroup and I can view shared files and devices from others also on the HomeGroup.

In addition, I'm sharing my files and printer, which Paul can access from his computer. All shared libraries are available right from Windows Explorer so I don't have to go hunting around for them.

I'm going to view the shared photos on another computer on my network and arrange them by the month they were taken. HomeGroups not only allow you to share files, but you can also send media like photos and music directly to media enabled programs and devices on your network.

The techie term for this is streaming. I'm going to make my photos and music available to all other family members who are using Windows Media Player by selecting this check box.

By choosing this option in my HomeGroup, photos and music on my computer will be available to people in my HomeGroup and automatically appear in Windows Media Player.

They won't have to add these items to their library manually. HomeGroup makes sharing media that simple. Want to learn more? Check out the guide for this video.

It has a lot of additional information, including step-by-step instructions so you can explore Windows 7 on your own.