Hey ET - I need some network file access advice

[Mister Bushice]

I have a four computer home network, including two laptops, two desktops, only one desktop is wired the other three are wireless cards. It is a closed network so no one from outside can hack in without the password, at least not easily.

I want to be able to access a key file folder system on the main computer from one of the wireless laptops.

How could I accomplish this? I don't want all computers to have this access, only one of the laptops. Right now I have common folders available, but I'd rather not have to dump files in there every day since we do a high volume and it would be redundant work for me.

All puters are less than 2 years old XP pro, with a linksys router on a DSL system. The hard wired box is not a server but that is where the necessary files are.

Thanks a pantload. :)

[ElTaco]

Since you only have a 4 workstation network, I would say the easiest method is to create a user account on the PC and give it access (read only unless you want that user to be able to change files in the directory) to that shared folder. You can either assign permissions directly to the shared folder or you could make the shared folder open to all and then assign NTFS permissions to the folder for that user.

The username/password should probably duplicate the username/password that you use for the laptop, that way when they log into the laptop, XP will automatically log them into the shared folder when they try to access it. If you don't have access to the username and password on that machine then just set up a new username/password on the PC and then log in as an administrator to the laptop and Map the shared directory. As you are mapping the directory, click on the 'Conect using a different user name' link and enter the username and password for the user you created on the PC.

[Mister Bushice]

Can I make any / multiple folders a shared folder?

Here's the thing. The files in need of being accessed are on drive C:folder1/subfolder1/subsubfolder1.

I can't move all of the needed files to the network shared folder, there are way too many - we're talking over a thousand and growing all the time.

I do have the shared folders of each computer accessible to each other, but outside of the tedium of creating a duplicate directory tree in those folder and copying everything in it over there everyday to keep it current, I don't know how else to do it.

[ElTaco]

In that case i would say that you should share subsubfolder1. Just make sure that the user account that is used to access the share has read access to that folder. If they will also want to modify the files then you'll want to give them write or modify rights as well.

This way, you don't have to copy anything, you just map subsubfolder1 and its ready to be used on the other PC.

[Mister Bushice]

excellent. thanks for the help.