Paul was asking how he could share files from one computer to another using his wireless router.

Paul was asking how he could share files from one computer to another using his wireless router.

Q. Hello Richard, I have a main PC which is hard wired to the Internet and I have a laptop that is WIFI. I want to access files on my main PC from my laptop. How do I set up a home network?

A. Hi Paul, you don’t mention which operating system you are using, so I am going to have to assume its Windows XP for no other reason than most of the people I see are still using it.  The instructions are different for Windows XP, Window Vista and Windows 7 so drop me another email if I have picked the wrong one.  Firstly, you should be aware that setting up file sharing on a Widows network is not necessarily all that easy, so if you get stuck it’s probably time to call in the professionals, however it’s interesting to cover this as I guess there may be many people out there that don’t even know it’s possible to do this sort of thing with their computers, it’s also a great way of backing up your information – by copying from one computer to another.

The steps to setting up file sharing in Windows XP are as follows…

  1. Check that  both your computer and your laptop are turned on and connected to the network (in your case, both machines are connected via your broadband router, we know this because they can both access the Internet on the same network)
  2. Check that both your computer and your laptop have different machine names. You can see your machine name by right clicking on the ‘My Computer” icon and selecting “Properties”
  3. Make sure both computers are on the same workgroup. This can be whatever you want, just make sure this is the same on all machines on your network. You can configure this from the computer name tab accessed in Step 2
  4. Now you can enable file sharing. Windows XP disables this by default and you will need to enable it. You do this by either right hand clicking on a directory or a hard drive, selecting Properties and then ‘Sharing and Security’, or by running the Network Wizard.

On another computer on the network go to “Network Neighbourhood” and browse your workgroup. You should be able to see the share there.