If you’re using a Windows domain, it’s important to remember that any administrator can access any computer on the network and access all of the local files. This is done through admin shares, which are shared out by default. ..

The administrator shares are hidden shares, so that anyone browsing the network will not see them. You can see if your local drives are shared out by going to My Computer, right-clicking on the local C drive (or whatever letter you have), and choosing Properties. Click on the Sharing tab and you’ll see that “Share this folder” is selected and the share name is C$.

The $ symbol after the share name is a hidden folder on the network that administrators can access. This means that any administrator can see all of your files at any time.

To share a folder on your home network or in your office, follow these steps:

  1. Open the folder you want to share.
  2. Click the Share button on the toolbar.
  3. In the Share window, click on the drop-down menu next to Share this folder and select either Home network or My office.
  4. If you want to share the folder with specific people, enter their email addresses in the Email addresses box and click Add.
  5. If you want to make sure that everyone who shares this folder can access files and folders inside it, select Allow others to access files and folders inside this folder and click OK. ..

Just add the $ right after the share name without any spaces. You can only create this hidden share when you first share the folder in Windows 7 and Windows 8. For some reason, you can’t change the share name once you’ve shared the folder, so in order to change it, you have to first remove the share and then re-share the folder.

To add or remove files from a folder, you’ll need to click on the Permissions button and select either Change or Full Control. ..

This is a great feature for people who want to add files and delete files. Full Control allows someone to change the permissions on the folder itself.

MyFiles\Comp1

If everything is setup correctly, the contents of the folder should pop up without a problem! Note that if you browse the network via Explorer and click on that computer, you won’t see that shared folder in the list because it’s hidden. You can only access it by manually typing in the full path like shown above. ..

This is the final step in setting up your new network. After you have shared a folder on the network with other people, they can access it and you can access it too! If you have any questions or problems setting this up, post a comment and we’ll try to help. Enjoy!