Best way to network my computers

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1101

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#1724890 23-Feb-2017 09:08

surfisup1000:

[

I've been using windows shares for years without issues. I agree back in vista pre-SP1 days it may have been a bit psycho but since then it is fine.

So long as your network is set to 'private', allow network discovery and sharing (on each computer on the network), then any folder you share should work just fine.

As long as you have done it before & know what your doing, the sure>
But , its still a buggy mess, as witnessed by the OP

How may PC-PC sharing's have you set up ?
Just wait till you come across the bug when a PC cannot access the share, no mater what.
Its a bug, theres been a few threads in geekzone about it. Requires Net Use batch file , running on startup to solve the issue
Such a nasty bug, that even running "net use" from within Win wont work in that case(only works if run on Win startup)

Then theres the bug (bad design) with Domain connected PC's trying to access shares on Non domain PC's requiring a login/pass

Yes, its a buggy , overly complex mess. In now way is PC-PC sharing suitable for the Average user to setup .
Sometimes it just works, other times it takes alot of effort to make it work.

At least the master browser issue from years back seems to be a thing of the past :-)

1101

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#1724891 23-Feb-2017 09:11

Perhaps the best answer is to Use Win Homegroup to share folders

thats very easy to setup , and should do the job.
There are options to add other folders to homegroup shares , you dont have to use all the defaults

Rikkitic

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#1724942 23-Feb-2017 09:56

Learning a lot of interesting things here. Thanks again to everyone for taking the trouble to help out with this. I finally enabled public folder sharing just to see if it would work and it does, exactly as it should, but the folder I was trying to share still refuses to play nicely. I could just use the public folders but now I'm mad and I'm going to make this damned thing work the way I want it to if it kills me. Next step is to go through all the public folder security settings and compare one by one with the folder that doesn't work.

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surfisup1000

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#1725043 23-Feb-2017 11:20

Spyware:

You're mixing up netbios resolution with a dns query via the router. These are 2 different things. Pace is doing a DNS query to whatever. Has nothing to do with NetBIOS as router doesn't do NetBIOS resolution.

The technical details are irrelevant. The point is that routers are more complicated devices. And as such , they can have bugs/instabilities which prevent networked pc's from communicating. The pace is a specific example, but I've seen other isp supplied devices that are unreliable.

surfisup1000

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#1725049 23-Feb-2017 11:25

1101:

How may PC-PC sharing's have you set up ?
Just wait till you come across the bug when a PC cannot access the share, no mater what.

15-20 perhaps ... i just haven't encountered any sharing bugs in the last 4 or 5 years.

Not saying there aren't any bugs, maybe I've been lucky :)

The same can't be said for apple wifi sync from itunes to my ios devices.... I gave up ... and it is not necessary anyway now that we have unlimited data.

yitz

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#1725059 23-Feb-2017 11:33

Rikkitic:
Next step is to go through all the public folder security settings and compare one by one with the folder that doesn't work.

I think you would be better off investigating resetting NTFS permissions.

Also, what type of location is the folder you are trying to share?

Is it a user folder e.g. C:\Users\Rikki\Documents

Any other folder C:\MyFolder or D:\MyFolder (external media?)

Root drive e.g. D:\* (can't do C:\)

It's not a system location is it?

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Spyware

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#1725060 23-Feb-2017 11:35

surfisup1000:

Spyware:

You're mixing up netbios resolution with a dns query via the router. These are 2 different things. Pace is doing a DNS query to whatever. Has nothing to do with NetBIOS as router doesn't do NetBIOS resolution.

The technical details are irrelevant. The point is that routers are more complicated devices. And as such , they can have bugs/instabilities which prevent networked pc's from communicating. The pace is a specific example, but I've seen other isp supplied devices that are unreliable.

Even though just a dumb layer 2 switch on lan side.

Spark Max Fibre using Mikrotik CCR1009-8G-1S-1S+, CRS125-24G-1S, Unifi UAP, U6-Pro, UAP-AC-M-Pro, Apple TV 4K (2022), Apple TV 4K (2017), iPad Air 1st gen, iPad Air 4th gen, iPhone 13, SkyNZ3151 (the white box). If it doesn't move then it's data cabled.

Rikkitic

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#1725076 23-Feb-2017 11:53

yitz:

I think you would be better off investigating resetting NTFS permissions. Also, what type of location is the folder you are trying to share? Is it a user folder e.g. C:\Users\Rikki\Documents Any other folder C:\MyFolder or D:\MyFolder (external media?) Root drive e.g. D:\* (can't do C:\) It's not a system location is it?

It is just a simple folder I created off the root of the D: drive ("D:\All new video downloads"). There is nothing special about it.

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Rikkitic

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#1725151 23-Feb-2017 13:41

I finally found it. For some reason, the folders I was trying to share did not have 'everyone' as a user under the security tab. As soon as I added that, it worked. No doubt if I had known what I was doing (I didn't), I would have realised this immediately.

I'm glad I found it but nothing about this experience has improved my opinion of Windows. It remains utterly and absolutely ridiculous that normal users who want to do normal things have to go through this kind of crap.

Thanks again to all who offered their help. I have learned a lot of things I didn't know before.

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yitz

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#1725164 23-Feb-2017 14:04

Actually that does remind me, the allowing of the 'Everyone' group permission is needed for non-password protected sharing. Forgot all about that.

Instead of going into the Security tab, first I use the wizard interface under the "Network File and Folder Sharing' and assign 'Everyone' read/change (as applicable) permission. Then if I need to change the share name to something shorter / share permissions I use the 'Advanced Sharing' interface.

While you do not need to use the 'Advanced Sharing' interface, I prefer it as you can specify the share name which is more similar to how it was done traditionally in XP etc.

The reason for this I believe is the "Guest" account (which is what you log onto as non-password protected) is not assigned permission by default in NT 6.0 and later.

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#1725191 23-Feb-2017 14:27

Rikkitic:

I'm glad I found it but nothing about this experience has improved my opinion of Windows. It remains utterly and absolutely ridiculous that normal users who want to do normal things have to go through this kind of crap.

It is incredible how difficult computers are to actually use, despite the supposed simplicity advertised by Microsoft and others.

Maybe when AI gets good enough, it will be able to recognise what people want to do and arrange things accordingly in a smart and secure way.

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#1725219 23-Feb-2017 14:54

Doesn't Cortana do that already? I'm pretty sure you can tell it find such and such a file on your OneDrive and then tell it to share that file with people (through OneDrive/Outlook.com/apps).

1101

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#1725526 24-Feb-2017 09:28

surfisup1000:

Not saying there aren't any bugs, maybe I've been lucky :)

Yeah, its not a commonly seen bug , only come across it maybee 4 or 5 times . When you get it, what a nightmare to resolve
Explorer completely hides the share/mapped drive for some reason .
Adding a mapped drive with "Net use" will resolve this bug , but ONLY
if run as a batch file on startup. Same bat file run after win starts wouldnt work for that share in this case . Just weird .

shk292

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#1725573 24-Feb-2017 11:14

It would appear from this thread that to answer the original question, the best way to achieve the required networking is to install a simple NAS and put all the files to be shared on there

Rikkitic

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#1725582 24-Feb-2017 11:24

Maybe I should have qualified my question as best way for me. Simple file sharing seems to be doing what I need now that it is finally working. For my purposes, I don't see any benefit of a NAS over this.

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